Carpe Diem
by Shinigami8419
Summary: Heero gets the second chance no one should get. Shounen-ai 1x2 (mild) pg13 for some language and some violenceangst. UPDATED: CHAPTER 2 REALLY IS WORKING NOW!
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the G-boys etc, regardless of how much I'd like to ___  
  
Warnings: Yaoi, violence, language, angst, lime, a bit fluffy too, I guess  
  
Pairings: 1x2  
  
  
  
1 Carpe Diem  
  
Identify. Aim. Shoot. Dodge. Identify. Aim. Shoot. Destroy. Just a series of repetitions. Exactly what he'd been trained for. Heero efficiently fought off the scores of mobile suits as they flew in on all sides. Trowa and Wufei had got through with the help of his and Duo's cover fire and had destroyed the OZ weapons research centre. Mission Complete. Trowa and Wufei were already on their way back to the safe house.  
  
All Heero had to do now was get out with Duo.  
  
"How you doin' their, buddy?" Duo's face appeared on Wing's monitor. He looked slightly strained but there was a manic grin on his face.  
  
"Almost done," Heero replied in his usual monotone. "Get ready to pull out."  
  
"Roger that." Duo replied and signed off.  
  
Heero's hands flew over the controls. He dodged the fire of one mobile suit and sliced it in half. It exploded in a ballooning of flame and smoke.  
  
Heero's monitor blipped. He looked up. Two large waves of OZ reinforcements were on the way. Heero grunted. Their timing must have been slightly off. Heero looked over at Deathscythe. Duo was surrounded but fighting well. Heero was sure Duo would be able to defeat them all, but Duo seemed to be so wrapped up in his conflict that he did not notice the reinforcements on their way.  
  
Heero quickly shot three more suits to hell and went to help Deathscythe out. As he got closer Heero realised that the situation was a little more serious. Deathscythe had sustained some heavy damage.  
  
"Duo, get out of there now," Heero ordered flatly. "There are too many and more on the way."  
  
"Negative, pal," Duo's strained voice was heard in his cockpit. "The minute I let my guard down, they'll be on me."  
  
"Hold on," Heero replied. "I'm almost on you."  
  
But as Heero approached as fast as he could, two suits attacked Duo from behind. A large burst of cannon fire sent Deathscythe pitching forward whilst the second suit rammed into it. Deathscythe slumped over. Bits of the Gundam exploded in fire and smoke.  
  
"Duo!" Heero called, with more desperation that was characteristic of him. There was no answer. Heero roared in anger and advanced on the two suits. In a matter of seconds they were so much smoking scrap metal on the ground.  
  
Heero opened Wing's cockpit door and jumped onto Deathscythe. "Duo!" He frantically scrambled over the smouldering shoulder of the Gundam and to the cockpit. It was in a sorry state.  
  
"Duo! Answer me!" Heero growled as he shouldered Deathscythe's cockpit door open violently. He plunged in. And froze.  
  
"Duo." Heero's voice choked.  
  
The control panel was splintered metal and sparking wires. The force of the impact had broken the braided boy's restraints and he'd been flung forward.onto a viciously sharp, foot-long shard of metal that had broken away from the panel and was protruding from the controls.and Duo's back. It had gone straight through the boy's stomach.  
  
Heero unfroze himself and rushed forward. Duo's head rested on the control panel and his face was turned away. Heero scrambled to the other side. Duo's face was ghostly pale. "Duo? Duo, wake up."  
  
The boy's violet eyes fluttered open briefly, but they seemed unable to focus. He had a sad attempt at a grin. "Hiya there, Hee-chan," Duo murmured.  
  
Too much blood. "Duo," Heero once more felt his voice catch. "You're gonna be ok. Just hang on." Heero was trying to convince himself as much as his wounded comrade. But as he once more saw the bloodied piece of metal that was sticking through the boy's abdomen and protruding from his lower back, he knew that Duo was not going to survive. //No!// Heero thought desperately. //He'll live. He always does. He won't leave me.//  
  
"Heero?" asked Duo weakly. Heero was alarmed to see that Duo's eyes were not focussing on him. "There's something digging into my stomach."  
  
Heero swallowed. He reached forward and brushed Duo's bangs out of his eyes. He was trying desperately to think of a way to move his injured comrade with causing him further damage. The reinforcements would be here soon and they had to get away quickly. "Hang on, Duo. You hear me!"  
  
Duo nodded faintly but his eyes drifted shut. "It hurts, Heero."  
  
"You're gonna be ok," Heero stroked Duo's hair. He could feel tears brimming in his eyes.  
  
"Heero.I've got to.to tell you." Duo's breathing was coming short and fast.  
  
"Don't try to speak, Duo," Heero said.  
  
"No!" Duo was insistent. His face contorted in pain and determination. "Heero.I."  
  
Heero bit his lip.  
  
"Heero," Duo ploughed on. Heero had to lean forward to hear his words. "I.love you."  
  
Tears fell from Heero's eyes. He kept his voice strong and wiped the blood off Duo's face. "Baka," Heero tried to say lightly. "Why didn't you tell me?"  
  
Duo smiled. He was fading.  
  
"Duo! Don't you leave me, Duo!" Heero clung to the boy's torn pilot suit. He wouldn't be able to survive without Duo. It was only now, after he heard those words and now, when it was too late, Heero realised what he hadn't understood all these years. "Ai shiteru Duo."  
  
Duo smiled and opened his eyes to look at Heero. His gaze was strong for a second. "Get away, Heero," he croaked, "the.reinforcements."  
  
"No, Duo," Heero insisted. "I'm not leaving you.Duo? Duo!" Heero felt his heart tear in two as the life disappeared out of his partner's eyes. All his resolve and self-control that had been iron-clad up until then melted in a wash of bitter tears. He clung to Duo's body, crying out desperately.  
  
A distant roar intruded in on his distraught moment. He looked up out of the open cockpit. The waves of mobile suits were arriving.  
  
Fury boiled with grief inside him. He was going to jump up and destroy them all with his bare hands.but he still couldn't bare the thought of leaving Duo here.  
  
With wet cheeks and cringing, Heero gently pulled Duo's body off the metal shard it had been impaled upon. Duo's blood was all over the panel. The Japanese pilot searched for strength so as not to break down. He cradled his precious and surprisingly light cargo in his arms and jumped from Deathscythe's destroyed cockpit and onto Wing's shoulder. He wanted to stay and destroy every last one of the OZ forces that had killed his friend, but his soldier mind was weighing up the odds. Even the infamous Heero Yuy wouldn't survive against all those reinforcements.  
  
He shut the cockpit and boosted his gundam's engines. They roared to life and soon the scene of destruction was far behind.  
  
But the pain did not lessen. Heero set his gundam on auto-pilot. He pulled Duo's body into his lap and wept shamefully over it for the entire journey to the safe house. The Japanese boy felt as if something had been ripped out of him. His soldier's mind whispered to him that it did not matter. The mission had been completed, that was all that mattered. This was war. Casualties were only to be expected.  
  
//You knew that one of you would be almost certain to die.//But Heero's military thinking was not enough to deaden the pain. He was not trained to deal with this situation. He had never expected that he would feel so strongly; that part of him had died a long time ago. But when he saw Duo's impaled body.something was torn open inside him and all the bottled up emotions had stormed out with a vengeance.  
  
And to hear Duo say with his last breaths, "I love you." Somehow Heero had known before. But he had chosen to ignore Duo's feelings and his own. Emotions were an inefficient use of time and reduced a soldier's optimum fighting capacity. But, surprised though some might be to realise it, Heero Yuy was human. When he was cut, he bled. And now, his heart was bleeding.  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
Quatre had welcomed his tall lover back to the safe house with an embrace. He greeted Wufei with a big smile and a wave. He already had some hot tea ready for them. No matter what any of them said, Quatre knew that the best thing to come back to after a mission was a warm cup of tea. Quenched the thirst and warmed the body.  
  
They had talked quietly amongst themselves over the aforesaid beverage, waiting for Heero and Duo to return. Quatre was glad to hear that the mission had gone well and Trowa and Wufei had successfully destroyed their target. Heero and Duo only had a few more suits to fight off and they'd be back shortly.  
  
To punctuate the comment, the sound of engines could be heard roaring in the distance. Talk was suspended amongst the three pilots as the noise of the landing died down and Quatre excused himself to go and welcome Heero and Duo back.  
  
Quatre made it into the hall as the front door began to open. "Konnichiwa, Heero," Quatre greeted brightly. "How did." Quatre's smile left his face as if it had been pulled off with a string. Heero stood in the doorway with his face grimy with tears and blood. There was blood on his clothes. In his arms he cradled Duo. The boy's head lolled on Heero's shoulder and one arm hung down lifelessly. There was blood all over the front and the back of his pilot suit that was smeared on Heero's hands, arms and face and had dripped down onto his shoes.  
  
Quatre clasped his hands to his mouth for fear he would scream. It took him a moment to gather enough breath to speak. "Duo?"  
  
"He's dead," Heero said flatly. Quatre's tear-filled, terror-stricken eyes looked up at Heero's face. It was flat, devoid of all emotion, as was his voice. His cobalt blue eyes were as hard and cold as marble. But Quatre could detect deep within them the heart-rending pain that flickered secretly. Quatre could also see that they were red from weeping and that his face was stained with tears.  
  
Quatre couldn't contain himself. To see Duo like that.he burst into sobs.  
  
Trowa and Wufei rushed into the hall to see what the matter was. Quatre flung himself into his lover's arms and cried. He screwed his eyes up tight to try and banish that vision.  
  
Heero calmly closed the front door. Trowa and Wufei both stared at the gut- wrenching sight. Trowa hugged the distraught Quatre tight and clung on. Wufei just stood and stared. There were tears in all eyes present. Except Heero Yuy's.  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
The gundam flew off as the OZ reinforcements arrived. But there was still one gundam left on the battlefield, or what was left of it. The mobile suits landed.  
  
The captain addressed his troops via the radio. "Alright team, get in there and see if we can find anything."  
  
Some of the troops could then be seen scrambling up the remains of the large machine. One man disappeared inside. The captain heard the private's voice. "Affirmative, sir. There's loads of blood."  
  
"Whose is it?" asked the captain impatiently.  
  
"I'll have to check the footage from my suit's computer sir," the private said, "but I'm pretty sure it's 02 pilot's. The state he was in when 01 dragged him out of the cockpit."  
  
"Are you certain it was a gundam pilot that was injured?"  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
The captain smiled. "Good. Get a sample and bring it back to base."  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
They all decided that it would be best to give Duo a traditional Catholic burial. They thought he should be buried in the Sanq Kingdom where he would, hopefully, be undisturbed and protected.  
  
The congregation was impressive, consisting of the four remaining Gundam pilots, Dorothy, Hilde, Relena and all forty of the Magunacs. They had insisted on attending. And it wasn't because they wanted to stay by Master Quatre.  
  
Tears flowed as the coffin was lowered into the ground. Some quietly, some not so quietly. Heero stood silent as always. But as the mahogany coffin was laid in the cold earth, he felt yet another part of his humanity go with it.  
  
He stayed there a long time after everyone else had gone. It was a plain, black marble headstone with a simple inscription.  
  
Here lies  
  
Duo Maxwell  
  
Much loved friend and soldier  
  
AC180 ~ AC195  
  
Killed in action  
  
But to Heero it spoke so much more. If only he had known! If only he had known that his best friend was going to be taken away from him.he would have done something. Heero clenched his fists until his fingernails cut the skin. The cool breeze in the graveyard ruffled his hair and whistled soothingly in his ears.  
  
Heero knelt by the gravestone. He laid his hand upon it. Finally there were tears in his eyes.  
  
"I'm sorry, Duo," he whispered. "I'm sorry for when I punched you. I'm sorry for when I ignored you. I'm sorry for all the times I hurt you. And I'm sorry for not understanding sooner."  
  
Heero looked back on the misty past. How blind had he been? Of course Duo had cared for him. With hindsight, Heero could see all the attention Duo had paid to him, all the undue kindness. Duo had always been over the moon the occasional times when Heero had complimented him or even had a conversation with him. Why had Heero been so stubborn? He had known, he had known all along that Duo.loved him. And that he loved Duo back. Why hadn't he said anything?  
  
Heero collapsed onto the grass and cursed in bitter frustration. So many missed opportunities. What would it have been like to love Duo? How would it have felt to be loved? Heero decided he would have liked it. He would have liked to hold hands when he walked down a street. He would have liked the security of love.  
  
What would it have been like to make love to Duo? To feel that silky hair running through his fingers, to kiss velvet skin and lips. What would it have been like to share something that precious, that glorious and that beautiful with Duo?  
  
Now he would never know.  
  
He pulled his hair away from his tear-filled eyes. It was beginning to get dark. Heero looked to the horizon. The sinking sun was staining the clouds with pinks and purples. Duo had always loved sunsets. Heero had always refused to share such simple joys and joy of the simple beauties.  
  
"I'll share this one with you Duo," he whispered. He leant against the headstone and gazed out over the sky that had caught on fire. "This one and every one to come." If he had not been able to share sunsets with Duo during his life, then Heero swore he would do so during his death. He wanted to.  
  
Unconsciously, Heero's hand rested on top of the grave, his fingers gently brushing the petals of the bouquet of white lilies. He could imagine they were Duo's fingertips.  
  
At last, Heero Yuy and Duo Maxwell experienced their first sunset together, hand in hand.  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
"Goddamn it Doctor, I will ask again," the captain said threateningly. "Is he goddamn ready yet?"  
  
"Sir, it really is not as simple as that," the doctor looked through the one-way glass into the small room where a boy lay on a hospital bed, perfectly formed. A first-class result, if he did say so himself. The doctor allowed himself a small smile of pride.  
  
"His body is complete and functional," the doctor said proudly, "but his brain still needs to accept and hold all the memories, personality traits, characteristics and a billion other things that go up to make this individual."  
  
The captain humphed in annoyance. "Does he really need all those things? All we want is for him to be able to fight."  
  
The doctor rolled his eyes slightly. Ignorant soldiers. "He needs his memories and experiences so that he knows how to fight as well as he did. Everyone learns from their memories. If he awoke with none, his training would have to start from scratch. Besides the time that would be wasted in this enterprise, we don't know what sort of training he had that made him as good as he was. It is better for him to remember his own training."  
  
The captain ground his teeth in his head. Ignorant scientists. "When will he be goddamn ready then," the captain asked angrily. "Goddamn," he added for good measure. "It's taken seven goddamn months to build his body and whatever crap you pencil necks have to do to get him right. I want to know when I can start planning my strategies around him."  
  
It was the doctor's turn to grind his teeth in his head. He looked through the glass again at the boy on the bed. He no longer needed tubes to breathe for him. He was functioning perfectly. Eyelashes rested peacefully on his cheeks and his chest rose and fell in his steady breathing. There was a wire attached to his forehead that was fed into a large machine next to the bed. It blinked and hummed ominously.  
  
"His memories are being secured as we speak," the doctor informed the captain. "He should be ready in a week. I will need to perform some tests to ensure that everything went right and of course some initial."  
  
The captain wasn't listening to the doctor's drivel. He smiled evilly. At last, they had a fighting chance against those colonial brats that fought them so goddamn well. Now they had one of their own. The captain tilted his head and watched the innocent-seeming boy sleep. They would have to cut his hair. No soldier in his goddamn military was going to ponce around wearing his hair in a braid.  
  
  
  
Author's note: more to come very soon. Should have another chapter up soon. For all the new readers, how do you like it so far? 


	2. Chapter 2

Duo slowly woke. He kept his eyes closed and did not move. He tried to assess his situation. He was lying in a bed. A hard bed. That meant a hospital. Awww, man! He grumbled in his head. What the hell have I done to myself now? He tried to remember.   
  
He remembered being pitched forward in Deathscythe's cockpit. And the agony. That sharp piece of metal that had broken away from the panel…Ewwwww! That is just so gross! I guess it must have gone right through me. Gross, gross, gross!  
  
But he felt no pain now. Not even a dull ache where the shard would have gone through him. In fact, he felt no pain at all. None of the old aches and pains that used to always bother him, that were just a part of him. His back didn't ache from lying still for so long like it usually did. The almost constant headache he used to have was gone.  
  
Man, what kinda hospital is this? A pretty good one, he decided, since he had managed to survive being impaled on a thick splinter of metal without so much as a twinge to show for it.  
  
That's all he remembered. Except…oh god! Heero. He had told him. He had finally told him. After all the times of working together, after all the secret longings, after all the suffering of fearing rejection Duo had finally told Heero that he loved him.   
  
Dammit! He cursed. If I'd known I was going to survive I wouldn't have been stupid enough to tell him that. Duo was just running over all the painful ways in which Heero Yuy was going to kill him when he remembered something else…  
  
"Ai shiteru, Duo,"  
  
No, no it couldn't be. He thought harder. It had been Heero's voice, Heero's hands on him. But no, the Perfect Soldier didn't love, especially not him! I mean, for Christ's sake, he had the Queen of the World panting over him and pushed her away. No way would he love me…But for some reason, Duo suddenly felt the happiest he had been in years.  
  
Right, he decided, now it was time to figure out where he was.  
  
He listened. There was no one in the room with him. He slowly blinked his eyes open. He almost cried out as the light pierced his eyes and weakly pulled his hands up to cover his face. His eyes fought to adjust to the glare. It was as if they had never seen a bright light before.  
  
When they finally adjusted he looked around him. A small room: a mirror on one side, a small cupboard on the other. One window protected by bars. A door: locked probably. He was indeed lying in a bed with thin, clinically white sheets. He was naked. Aww, man, like I didn't have enough to worry about.  
  
Well, it seemed like a hospital, but not any kind of hospital Duo had ever been in. He could hear no noise, no rushing of nurses and doctors, no overhead announcements, no buzz and whirr of equipment. And there was nothing in his room. No curtain to pull around the bed, no chair for visitors, no table for flowers or cards. Just that cupboard, that mirror, the bed and a security camera. He was starting to get worried.  
  
He heard a key in the lock. He quickly feigned sleep. He would find out where he was then decide what to do about it.  
  
He couldn't tell how many people walked into the room. Not many, he thought. Two or three. A few men and one woman, all talking in low, gruff voices. Nothing like any doctors Duo had ever encountered  
  
"Damn you, Doctor," one voice said. "I thought you said he was awake?"  
  
He heard a sigh. "Yes, I did, but as I tried to explain on the phone, at this stage he will be fluctuating between consciousness and unconsciousness quite a lot. But you were in such a rush, you must not have heard me." Duo could hear the smarmyness in the guy's voice.  
  
Well, someone was in a rush to see him as soon as he had woken up? He didn't know whether to be complimented or worried.  
  
"Will he wake up again soon?" The woman's voice.  
  
"I really don't know, Lady Colonel," the doctor said.  
  
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh dear, thought Duo. Lady Une?! I'm in deeeeeep shit. He knew now, he wasn't in a hospital. He was in an OZ facility. He had been captured. Duo cursed in his mind fluently in several languages he wasn't even aware he knew. Ok, ok, calm down, Maxwell, he told himself. They don't know you're awake yet. Listen.  
  
The doctor was still talking. "His body is completely functional now, including his brain. It's now only up to him when he wakes up fully. It shouldn't take too long. All these Gundam pilots are notorious for having quick recovery rates."  
  
He felt cold, professional fingers test the pulse in his wrist and then his neck. He had to fight hard to remain 'unconscious' when one of his eyelids was pulled open and a bright light was shined in his eye.  
  
"Is he alright, doctor?" Lady Une's voice again  
  
"Perfect," the doctor said with no small element of pride. "We should have no problems."  
  
Hang on, hang on, Duo was confused. Perfect? What the hell do you mean?  
  
"So this is the infamous Duo Maxwell," the captain's smug voice was heard and heavy booted footsteps stepping closer to his bed. He heard an "Urg," and a scuffle as the doctor was pushed away so the captain could get closer. "Doesn't look so threatening now, does he?"  
  
"Captain, I suggest you conduct yourself with decorum," Lady Une's voice was flat but threatening. "Duo Maxwell was infamous for good reason. If we want him to be the same for us, I do believe respect is in order."  
  
There was a silence as the Colonel moved to the door and left.  
  
"Respect my arse," the captain muttered. "This kid caused me enough misery. He's not getting any respect out of me."  
  
"Captain…"  
  
"Leave, doctor," the captain ordered tersely. "I want a few moments alone with my new recruit."  
  
You don't, you really don't, Duo warned the man silently.  
  
Duo heard the doctor open the door. "Don't you dare harm my new boy," the doctor warned.  
  
Nani?! What the hell are these guys on? Have they adopted me or something? Eww, that's a scary thought.   
  
"You can relax, doctor," the captain said. "And don't you be skulking behind the mirror cos if I think you are, I'll break through it to see if I'm right. And if I am, I'll have you hung, drawn and quartered so you can study your own intestines, is that clear?"  
  
The doctor gulped. "Clear, captain."  
  
Plans were already beginning to form in Duo's mind.  
  
The door closed. He heard the heavy man walk to the other end of the room and heard a plug being pulled out of a socket. He had unplugged the security camera! How dumb could these guys get! Duo couldn't help but smile slightly. This man was basically asking him to escape. What the hell did they think he would do? Just sit around and wait for whatever was planned for him?  
  
Well, Duo's escape was decided now. Now all he had to do was knock out the obnoxious captain and nick his clothes. Duo only briefly wondered why the captain wanted no one watching the room.  
  
He soon realised when he felt the hot breath of the guy on his face. "Why are the Gundam pilots all so pretty?" he wondered. "I think it must be a clever new device. You know it makes it hard for half my platoon to concentrate on fighting you when their all imagining what it would be like to fuck you until you screamed?"  
  
Duo almost choked. You sick bastards…  
  
He involuntarily flinched when callused fingers ran down the side of his face and neck.  
  
"Ah, you like that, do you, pretty-boy?" the captain muttered gleefully. Duo felt the captain's lips against his ear as he whispered. "You know, when you sleep you look so goddamn fuckable I wanna make sure I'm always around when you sleep. How about that? Would you like to sleep in my bed? I bet you would. It'd do you good to be fucked by a real man once in a while. I bet you'd like it. You can't be that pretty and not a slut along with it."  
  
You're only making it worse for yourself Duo thought at the man. Fury was boiling inside him. It was all he could do to not jump up and throttle the life out of the disgusting bastard.  
  
The hard, cold fingers brushed against Duo's lips. The man's breath was hot against his skin. The fingers returned to his lips and slowly pushed them apart and his fingers eased themselves into Duo's mouth.  
  
The man moaned slightly. Duo almost threw up. He felt the bed shift and then felt the man's considerable weight as he sat across Duo's hips. "You know, I think I like you like this," the captain muttered as his fingers probed Duo's mouth. "But I would like you better awake. I think your mouth would look nice as it screamed."  
  
Then the man used his other hand to lift Duo's hand and he pressed it against his abdomen. "You Gundam pilots think you're so goddamn hard. But you're all just tiny, pretty little fags."  
  
As the disgusting man pushed the 'pretty little fag's' hand into the waistband of his pants Duo snapped. He yanked his hand away and bit down hard on the man's fingers.  
  
The man yelped and tumbled off the bed. Duo sat up and delivered a punch to the surprised man's face. To Duo's disappointment, the man was unconscious immediately. Duo got out of the bed, surprised slightly at the shakiness of his legs. He pulled the guy into a sitting position by his tie and straddled him. He repeatedly slapped the man's face until his eyes blinked open.  
  
"You like this, you dirty bastard?" Duo hissed as he continued to slap his hand hard enough to draw blood across the man's face.  
  
"You filthy brat," the guy spat and tried to stand up. "I'm gonna teach you…"  
  
"Oh, teach me master," Duo continued to hiss. "Teach the pretty little fag, dirty master."  
  
The man growled and wrapped one large hand around Duo's throat. He tried to push Duo away and beat his head against the metal bedpost but Duo delivered another whopping blow with his fist and the man slumped to the floor. Duo stood and kicked the man sharply in the ribs.  
  
"Nope, sorry mate," Duo sighed. "You really just don't do it for me."  
  
Duo chuckled and swiftly stripped the man down to his under wear. He dressed himself in the man's clothes. They were roughly ten sizes too big. Duo had to pull the belt onto its smallest hole to stop the trousers falling down. He tucked in the tent of a shirt and looped the tie loosely under the collar. He threw the jacket over the top. Now, Duo needed to get out fast.   
  
He looked down at the ugly, half-naked captain lying on the floor. He knew that even OZ forces had some sense of dignity. This guy must be new. He chuckled again and snapped the elastic out of the guy's underwear to tie his hair back in a messy braid. He then took the guy's limp hand and placed it on the captain's crotch. He stepped back and admired his handy work. "I really hope your platoon find you like this," Duo giggled.  
  
He swiftly turned. As far as he could see out the window it was open grounds to a fence. Not really high security. Must be a research facility. Duo snorted. How did they expect to contain a Gundam pilot here?  
  
He wrenched the bars off without too much trouble. "Ha, take that, Heero Yuy," Duo smiled. "You're not the only one with super-human strength." Duo paused a second. "Heero…" soon he would be with him again. What was going to happen? Did Heero really say those words that Duo had longed for? He repeated Heero's name softly. He shook his head. "Aww, man. I'm gonna turn into Relena if I'm not careful."  
  
But why hadn't his friends come to get him out? They'd always done in the past. Heero could always find out where any of them were being held and it was simply a case of ripping off the roof and plucking the pilot to safety.  
  
Why had they not come for him? He must just have been well hidden. I mean, I don't even know how long I've been gone, Duo reasoned. I might have only been gone an hour. They might not even miss me yet. Duo involuntarily cringed at the thought that they might not even miss him, even if he had only been gone an hour. Would they miss him if he left? Except for Quatre, none of them seemed to pay him any sort of friendly attention. They all just told him to shut up and go away.   
  
No time for self doubts now, he decided. He stood on the windowsill and kicked through the glass. He jumped outside and ducked behind a bush. He doubted that he would be able to walk past the guard in this uniform that was like a tent around him. If he could get to the fence, he would be able to climb over.  
  
He strolled casually so as not to attract any attention. There were a few people wondering around. They gave him odd looks, probably because of the clothes, but Duo just grinned back and they all carried on about their business. He got to the fence and leant against it, examining his fingernails and whistling.  
  
Suddenly there was uproar from the building. Duo looked up to see the doctor at the broken window, yelling and looking around. People rushed to see what the commotion was.  
  
"I guess that's my cue to make like a banana and split," Duo muttered. He turned and jumped. He grabbed onto the wire fence and climbed. He was soon swinging himself over the top. Someone shouted and pointed. Duo looked up. People were running towards him, guards with guns following close behind.  
  
Duo waved jauntily and jumped to the ground. There were plenty of cars around, belonging to the scientists, Duo guessed. He efficiently broke into one and hot-wired it. In a matter of minutes he was speeding away into the distance. There was an attempt to follow but the boy had a head start.  
  
Duo grinned. "All in a day's work," he smirked. "Now, where the hell are the guys?"  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
Duo went back to the last safe house that he remembered being stationed at. It was abandoned. No one had been in it in a long time.  
  
Duo frowned as he looked around the dusty interior. "How long have I been gone?" he wondered aloud.   
  
He shook his head. He decided he would stay here tonight, somewhere reasonably safe. It was going to be hard to track down Heero and the rest of the pilots, but it wasn't beyond Duo's powers. He would go to a library tomorrow and get his hands on a computer. It would take him the best part of the day, but Duo knew it probably wasn't a good idea to be on his own for too long. If OZ had wanted him for something then they were going to try and get him back.  
  
Duo shut the door behind him. "I'm gonna need some new clothes as well," he said to himself, scowling in distaste at the too-large guard's uniform. He blew his bangs out of his eyes and headed into the bathroom. "But first, a shower."  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
Duo had been wrong. It hadn't taken him the better part of the next day to track down his comrades. It had taken all that day and most of the night. In the end the librarian insisted that he had to leave. The kind old woman had been powerless before Duo's smile and, against her better judgement, she had let the eager young man stay on past closing time.   
  
But when the clock in the library had chimed out nine forty-five p.m., she was insistent. Duo quickly finished up on the computer (Duo was sure that the machine gave a sigh of relief as he shut it down) with as good a lead as he was going to get. He had managed to hack into some of the pilots' coded mission statements. It had taken him a while, but he had found the area in which the other four pilots were currently residing.  
  
He already knew where the only safe house there for miles around was. That must be where the other pilots were staying.   
  
Duo thanked the old lady for her kindness. Secretly he was pained to see the innocent, wrinkly face smile at him back. How many people like that had he killed already?   
  
As Duo walked down the moonlit street he hung his head and ground his teeth. His hands clenched into fists deep in his pockets. He hated this war. He had no doubt many other people did also, but that didn't make it any better.   
  
He paused to look at the moon as it hung over his head. The silvery light bathed him in coolness. He blinked slowly in it's cool light. He was so tired. Not just from the day's computer work but from running, hiding and killing. He was tired of being hated. All his life things had gone the wrong way. As soon as he ever got any happiness it was snatched away.  
  
Father Maxwell, Sister Helen, Solo. Heero. Duo had been happy in that last moment before he'd passed out, happy that Heero had uttered those words, but he couldn't even stay conscious to tell Heero what his words had meant.   
  
Duo looked at the heavens. His violet eyes reflected the thousands of stars. He breathed the deep cool air. "Are you punishing me, God?" Duo whispered to the air. "Are you punishing me for all the crimes you knew I would commit?"  
  
Duo shook his head. God had never answered him all these years, why should he answer now?  
  
"But you sent me Heero," Duo corrected himself. He stood still on the moonlit pavement and smiled quietly. "I asked you for forgiveness, I asked you for happiness. You sent me Heero. Thank you."  
  
Duo grinned. And now he was returning to Heero. He didn't really mind if he had imagined Heero's "Ai shiteru," He would have loved it to be true, but for Duo it was enough that Heero was alive and that he would soon be near him.   
  
Duo virtually skipped the rest of the way to his stolen car, his braid bouncing jauntily against his back. Yes, he loved Heero. He could admit to himself freely now because it made him feel happy. He loved his strength. He loved the way his deep cobalt eyes sparkled with intelligence and secret emotions whenever he was deep in thought. Duo wanted to find out his secrets, to bring them to the surface. He wanted to heal him when he was in pain and hold him when he was lonely and he wanted someone to do then same for him. He wanted to make Heero smile.  
  
"There's time," Duo said with conviction as he opened the door of his car and climbed into the front seat. "There's all the time in the world." 


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the G-boys etc, regardless of how much I'd like to ___  
  
Warnings: Yaoi, violence, language, angst, lime, a bit fluffy too, I guess  
  
Pairings: 1x2  
  
  
  
1 Carpe Diem  
  
Quatre gave a wan smile as Trowa shouldered himself into his pyjama shirt. The European did so gingerly, trying not to let the fabric cause friction on his injured shoulder.  
  
"I told you that you're too brave for your own good," Quatre admonished good-naturedly. Trowa said nothing, which was not unusual, but Quatre could see the sparkle of amusement in his green eyes.  
  
Quatre dropped himself onto their bed and put his hands behind his head. He gazed at the ceiling for a while. He just lay there, letting himself rest for a few moments before getting up the energy to climb under his covers. He felt Trowa climb into the bed next to him.  
  
Without looking at his partner, Quatre asked, "How's Heero?"  
  
"Same as ever," said Trowa quietly. "He just went straight to his room when we got back."  
  
Quatre sighed. He shifted onto his side and propped his head up on his hand and gazed at his lover on the pillows. "Was he injured? That mission today was difficult."  
  
"I can never tell," Trowa replied glancing at the concerned blonde boy. "He never speaks to me."  
  
Quatre nodded sadly. "Yeah, I know. Me neither." Quatre sighed again. Heero had been like this for too long now. It hurt Quatre to see his friend still obviously suffering from Duo's death, but it seemed no one could do anything to ease the sorrow. Heero was very independent and he disliked sympathy. The only way Heero was going to heal was if he healed himself. Quatre and the others, even Wufei, had been trying for months to get him back to his old self (which was not much of an improvement) but to no avail.  
  
Quatre yawned and stretched. He flinched slightly. His back ached terribly. It had been a difficult mission.  
  
"Quatre? Daijoobu desu ka?" Trowa asked with concern.  
  
"Hai," Quatre nodded, touched, as he always was by his friend's concern. "I'm ok." He hauled himself off the bed. "I'm just going to get some cocoa - "  
  
"I'll get it," Trowa said and pulled back the covers.  
  
"No, it's alright, really," Quatre smiled. "You rest your shoulder. I think I want to give my back a bit of a stretch before I settle down anyway. Would you like a mug off cocoa too?"  
  
Trowa shook his head. "No thank you."  
  
Quatre smiled sleepily and headed out the door whilst tying up his dressing gown. He made his way down the stairs in the dark and into the kitchen. He shivered slightly as he switched on the light. This was a very draughty house, but it was the only safe one in the area for miles. Quatre rummaged around in the pantry amongst all their groceries, which were scarce and packed in cardboard boxes. He soon found the packet of instant cocoa. He selected a mug that wasn't too stained and set the kettle to boil.  
  
He leant against the counter to wait. He rubbed the backs of his arms. It was freezing. He yawned again.  
  
Suddenly, he heard the creak of the front door opening. He frowned in confusion. Wufei wasn't out late tonight and he and Heero were both in their room. He heard footsteps heading to the kitchen. He swiftly retrieved the gun that they kept hidden in one of the drawers and clicked off the safety.  
  
The kitchen door opened.  
  
"Hey, Q-man!" the boy in the door greeted jauntily. "How's it goin'?"  
  
Quatre choked for a moment. His vision blurred and his head swam. The gun clattered to the floor and Quatre fainted.  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
Heero looked up from his computer, frowning. His ultra sensitive hearing had picked up a crash. Wufei was messing around in the shower, but the noise had come from downstairs. Ever suspicious, Heero grabbed his handgun and made his way down the stairs. The light was on in the kitchen.  
  
He gently nudged the door open with his toe. Quatre lay unconscious on the floor by the counter. Someone was bending over him, someone whose beautiful face was creased in worry and confusion, someone whose clothes were too big, someone with a long braid of messy but clean hair.  
  
It was a dream, Heero decided. It had to be a dream. He had had so many. Carpe diem. It's only a dream, it can't hurt. It'll hurt you when you wake up if you do it; it'll hurt you worse if you don't.  
  
Heero dropped his gun and moved forward. The boy looked up from the recumbent Quatre. Those impossibly brilliant eyes brightened. The lips moved with words but Heero couldn't understand them. They didn't matter.  
  
The boy stood and Heero moved closer. It was just a dream, it wasn't real, he kept telling himself. But he didn't care. He wrapped the boy in an embrace and captured his surprised mouth in a passionate but gentle kiss. Duo.  
  
For a moment, the Dream Duo froze in his grip and gave a startled yip. Soon enough, however, Duo melted into the kiss and deepened it. Heero never wanted to wake up.  
  
The taste, the feel.it was real. Realisation was like ice stabbing him through the heart to leave an aftermath of burning fury. Heero pulled away so fast that Duo stumbled and almost fell over Quatre.  
  
"Omae o koroso," Heero growled. His dark eyes screamed bloody murder. The next thing the startled braided boy knew, he was thrown roughly on the floor and Heero was sitting on his stomach. Heero grabbed him by the shirtfront. Heero shook him so vigorously that his head snapped back and forth painfully.  
  
"What kind of sick joke is this?" Heero snarled, shaking the boy by his collar violently. "What the hell do they think they're bloody well playing at!"  
  
All the boy in his grasp could do was try weakly to ease the grip that Heero had on his shirt so he could breathe.  
  
"What the hell is this?" Heero held the boy so close that he could see the terror and bewilderment in his eyes. "What the fuck are you trying to accomplish!" Heero was virtually screaming by now. It hurt, it hurt so much. Duo was dead, Duo was dead! It had never stopped hurting. To have this thrown at him, it was just too much. He had suffered so much.  
  
Trowa and Wufei skidded into the kitchen. The scene before them was enough to confuse anyone. Trowa rushed to Quatre just as his eyes started to blink open. Heero was still screaming at the boy he'd battered to the ground.  
  
Wufei's eyes widened in horror. Heero Yuy was unbalancing. He rushed forward and grabbed him by the back of his tank top. It took a lot of effort to pry him off the intruder. Trowa had to help pull the boy to safety. Wufei held the perfect soldier in an iron grip as his eyes blazed. Heero's arms were steel knots of tensed muscle. He stopped screaming, but he breathed hard in and out of clenched teeth.  
  
Quatre clambered to his feet and leant on the counter. Wufei continued to hold Heero back but peered over his shoulder. Trowa held in his arms the shuddering boy that Heero was now trying to destroy even if it was by glaring alone.  
  
All the pilots were silent as the boy raised his face out of Trowa's shirt, streaked with tears and terror in his eyes. It was Duo.  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
"It's me guys, why won't you believe me?" Duo pleaded. It had all in all been a very tiring day for Duo. He had finally reached the safe house where the pilots were stationed and in the first five minutes of arriving, he had been fainted at, kissed and beaten up. Right now he was on a chair with his wrists secured to the chair back behind him and his ankles bound together. And all four of the pilots were looking at him with different degrees of confusion, anger and hatred. He just couldn't figure it out.  
  
"What is this?" asked Wufei, looking at Duo but talking to the others. Heero had his back to the scene and was kneading his fists together with his eyes clenched shut. Quatre was sitting down with a glass of water and Trowa was standing near Heero in case he made a violent lunge for Duo.  
  
"I don't know," said Trowa. "I really can't understand what's going on."  
  
"I bet they're all having a right laugh about this," Heero hissed. He refused to look at the boy in the chair. That hurt Duo most of all. For some reason Heero was completely disgusted by him. That stabbed deep. But Duo swallowed the pain and tried to find out what was wrong.  
  
"I honestly don't see what's wrong with you guys," he said. All, except Heero, looked at him. "Why the hell don't you think it's me? I mean, who else could it be? I'm not Mother Teresa, I know that, and I'm certainly not, as far as I know, Boris Yeltsin. It's me! Duo Maxwell! Remember? The loud guy with the killer haircut?"  
  
The other pilot's just stared at him. He sighed in exasperation. "Why do you think I'm not me?"  
  
"You really don't have a clue?" Quatre asked, only slightly less acidic than everyone else.  
  
Duo shook his head.  
  
Quatre looked at the others. "This doesn't make sense. He can't have been sent to infiltrate us. He really thinks he's Duo - "  
  
"I am Duo!!" Duo virtually shrieked.  
  
Quatre threw him a glance to ask him to clam up. Duo snarled in frustration and slumped back in his chair.  
  
Heero finally turned. He walked forward. Everyone tensed. Heero took Duo's chin in his fingers and moved his face this way and that as if he were examining an interesting explosive. Duo froze. "He's identical. Why else would they send him except to infiltrate?"  
  
"They haven't sent me, no one's sent me!" Duo cried.  
  
"Ok, what's your side of the story?" Wufei asked. Heero dropped his chin.  
  
"I told you," Duo said. "I woke up in the OZ hospital. The last thing I remember - " he took a deep breath and didn't look at Heero " - was passing out in Deathscythe's cockpit. I'd fallen on a huge shard of metal."  
  
Trowa noticed Heero's fists curl. This was hard on him, Trowa knew. It was harder on Heero than it was on the rest of them. They all knew how much Heero had cared for Duo, even if it had taken Heero himself some time to realise it. Trowa stepped forward.  
  
"Duo's been gone for seven months," Trowa said.  
  
"Nani?!" the boy in the chair exclaimed. "Seven bloody months! Jesus! I had no idea I was in there that long," he looked away. "I guess you guys must have stopped looking if I'd been gone that long." The pilots exchanged glances.  
  
Duo looked up. "You still don't believe it's me?"  
  
They were all silent.  
  
Duo thought hard. "Hang on, I know that Wufei wears pink boxers decorated with teddy bears!"  
  
They all looked at Wufei who blushed furiously.  
  
"How would I know that if I weren't me?" Duo asked. Though slightly amused now, the pilot's did not look convinced. Man, Duo thought. //What has happened to these guys that has made them so certain that I'd never come back?//  
  
"Ok, ok," Duo said and thought hard. An idea struck him. "My shoulder!"  
  
The pilots looked at him with raised eyebrows.  
  
"I have a scar on my right shoulder," Duo said triumphantly. He turned to Heero and immediately regretted it. Those eyes were like cruel glass splinters. But Duo ploughed on. "You remember Heero? We were on that infiltration mission. You were there too, Quatre. We were arguing and they snuck up on us. I caught the ricochet. Surely you remember!"  
  
"That's right," said Quatre. It pained Quatre to see this guy so like Duo. He behaved exactly the same. He spoke the same. He looked the same. What was going on?  
  
"Well, check my shoulder!" Duo insisted. "If I were a double, which, for some reason, you seem to think I am, then I wouldn't have exactly the same scar."  
  
Trowa moved forward. Some small flickering of hope wished the scar would be there, wished it was Duo, somehow, risen from the grave, sitting there in that chair. But he knew it wasn't. He unbuttoned the top few buttons on the boy's large shirt and pulled back the collar to expose his shoulder.  
  
"You see," Duo said. "I told you - "  
  
"Duo." Trowa interrupted him. "There's nothing there."  
  
"Nani?" Duo craned his neck to get a look at his shoulder. There was no scar there, not so much as a blemish on the skin. Duo blinked for a few seconds. "Crikey," he said quietly. "Where the hell's that gone then?"  
  
Quatre sighed and rubbed his temples. This was too much. "Look," he said quietly. "You said the last thing you remember was being flung on that metal, right?"  
  
Duo tore his gaze away from his shoulder to nod.  
  
"Well then," Quatre said. "If it were you, you'd have a huge scar from that too, wouldn't you?"  
  
Duo started to protest.  
  
"But you haven't got a scar, have you?" Quatre said. "You haven't even got so much as the pain from that injury which would have killed you."  
  
Duo fell into quiet. He knew he didn't have a scar from the injury. He never thought to check, but he knew he would have known there was one if there was. Duo hung his head. "I don't.understand," he said. He lifted his face again. There were tears in his eyes. "It's me you guys. I swear it. I swear it on my own blood. I swear it on the blood of Father Maxwell," he looked at all of them. They were all quiet. Duo pulled his gaze to Heero. "Heero," he whispered. All his hurt and his loneliness caused his voice to shake. "Heero, it's me. You told me that you." the tears choked his voice. "Please."  
  
Heero wanted to believe. He so wanted to believe. He wanted to fall into the trap. He hated seeing those eyes that he'd missed so sorely filled with tears. He hated to see Duo feeling so betrayed.but it wasn't Duo. Duo was lying in the earth in a graveyard in the Sanc Kingdom. Heero had seen his lifeless body, cleaned and dressed lovingly, lying on the white satin of a coffin, eyes closed as if in a peaceful sleep. He had seen the coffin lid fixed forever over Duo's body. He had seen it lowered into the ground and then seen it buried.  
  
Though he saw a boy sitting before him, hurt and confused, he knew it wasn't Duo.  
  
Heero closed his eyes to shut out the penetrating violet stare and once more turned his back on him. It was a cruel twist of a knife embedded in his life, heart and soul. A cruel twist brought on by OZ. People were going to die for this.  
  
"And you genuinely have no idea why we're not falling for this?" Heero heard Wufei's voice as if it were from a great distance.  
  
Duo blinked away the tears and looked at Wufei. His eyes were hard and merciless as ever, but Duo sensed something in all the pilots had at last been shaken. "It's not a trick you guys. I never tell a lie. Especially not to you."  
  
Something in Trowa clicked. He abruptly left the room. There was a short interval whilst everyone else just stared at each other.  
  
"Come here a second," Trowa's voice came from the next room.  
  
Wufei and Quatre glanced at the boy in the chair.  
  
"He's not going anywhere," Heero said. But for some strange reason, the cruel words were soft and had a different meaning. Heero knew somehow that the boy had no reason to want to leave.  
  
Heero, Quatre and Wufei all proceeded into the next room.  
  
Trowa was sitting at the small battered desk with a laptop open on the surface. The illumination from the screen danced across his stoic face as the keys clicked noisily.  
  
"What the hell is this?" Wufei asked. "What is going on? He can't be a double, he's just too." Wufei searched for the right words, ".Duo. No one else could act like that."  
  
"It's not Duo," Heero said firmly. "Duo is dead."  
  
"More importantly, what's he doing here?" asked Quatre. "I mean, not even OZ is stupid enough to try and infiltrate us with a double of someone who is dead."  
  
Heero involuntarily flinched. "You're right," he said quietly. "They're trying to break our moral."  
  
Quatre and Wufei exchanged glances silently. Quatre took a breath. "I don't think OZ would go to all this trouble so as just to play a cruel joke on us."  
  
"Joke!" Heero snapped. "You call this a joke!" Heero continued to shout, despite the warning glances he got from Trowa. "My best friend died seven months ago and I've continued to go through hell and back to try and deal with it, and know he's sitting in my lounge, big as life. That's your idea of a joke, is it, Quatre Raberba Winner?"  
  
Trowa stood. "That's enough Heero," he warned. "Getting at each other's throats won't solve anything."  
  
Heero did not fail to notice the double entendre in Trowa's words. Heero had almost unhinged in the kitchen, almost throttled the guy to death. He clutched his head and tried to regain some control. "I'm sorry," was all he said, quietly.  
  
Quatre nodded and smiled reassuringly, even though Heero had his eyes closed. "It's ok, Heero. I know this is hard."  
  
Heero blinked his eyes open. They were all watching him with mixtures of understanding and sympathy in their eyes. It was hard on them too, Heero belatedly realised. Duo had been their friend as well.  
  
"What I think is so strange," said Wufei to get back to the subject. "Is that he is really convinced that he is Duo." He looked at his companions who urged him to continue. "I mean, he wouldn't point out the faults in his disguise, like the scar on his shoulder, if he were trying to infiltrate. Whoever is behind this obviously knew that Duo had had a scar on his shoulder, otherwise the double wouldn't have known. If they wanted to pass him off actually as Duo, they would have faked a scar or just have him clam up about it so no one would realise it wasn't there. But he pointed out its absence, albeit unwittingly, because he was sure that scar would be there."  
  
Trowa nodded and clicked one final key on the laptop. "I think I've figured it out," he said as calmly as if he were announcing that it had started raining. The pilots clustered around the laptop.  
  
Heero examined the screen. OZ research files. "Clones?" he asked Trowa. "You think that."  
  
Trowa looked at all of them. "It's the only thing that makes sense. There have been rumors of cloning technology floating around all over the place for years. What if OZ has finally perfected it?"  
  
Quatre shivered again, not just because of the cold. "So, you think that guy tied to the chair in there.is Duo's clone?"  
  
Trowa slowly nodded.  
  
Wufei shook his head. "Why in the Earth Sphere would OZ want a clone of Duo? A clone of one of us might make sense so they could use it for infiltration, but we know that this guy isn't for infiltration."  
  
"You're right," said Trowa, shutting the laptop. "He's not. I think he was probably made as a weapon, so that they might have a fighting chance of being able to beat us in a battle. They want a pilot as good as us on their side."  
  
Heero tried to think this through. "Then what's he doing here? Is he on OZ's side?"  
  
Trowa shook his head. "I don't think so. As far as I can tell, I think he is the first one they've used for this. They wanted a pilot as good as Duo Maxwell. To make one, all they needed was some of Duo's DNA."  
  
"The blood in Deathscythe's cockpit," Heero whispered.  
  
Trowa nodded and continued. "I've heard that your memories are written into your DNA as well, that's how we keep them. OZ will have not wanted the body of Duo, because a body is just a body. It will have been strong and healthy like Duo's was, but it wouldn't be an ace pilot. So, I think they must have included in the clone all of his memories, all of his characteristics and talents that were mapped in his DNA so he would be as good a pilot as the original."  
  
"Makes sense," Wufei said.  
  
"But, something has gone wrong," Heero said. "They expected to have a new person wake up in the bed who they could control and recruit to their cause. They thought that by giving him all those things, all that would happen would be that he would have the talents and the resources they needed to use."  
  
"Exactly," said Trowa. "And that did happen. But, along with it, they have just put everything where it belongs. They have given him all the same experiences, all the same drives, the same personality," Trowa looked significantly at Heero. "The same feelings. He is exactly the same person as the one who died."  
  
Quatre nodded. "They thought he's wake up green and confused like a baby, but an incredibly useful baby that would know how to fly a Gundam terrifically. But he didn't wake up a baby. He woke up as Duo Maxwell."  
  
"No," Heero said. "He's not Duo! You've just explained that."  
  
"No," said Trowa. "He's not the original Duo. But he is an exact copy. That's why, when he found out he was in an OZ facility, he escaped and tracked us down."  
  
There was a long silence. Quatre finally voiced the question that they all wanted to ask. "Do you think he knows?"  
  
"No," said Trowa quietly. "I don't think he does. That's why he was certain of the scar. That's why he can't understand why we don't believe him."  
  
"He doesn't know he's dead," Heero said quietly. "He thinks he is Duo."  
  
"Well," said Quatre. "I guess, in a certain sense, he is."  
  
"No!" said Heero quickly. "He is not Duo."  
  
To avoid another discussion that was only going to achieve getting everyone angry, Wufei chipped in. "Listen. As far as that guy sitting tied to a chair out there is concerned, he is Duo, right? He remembers the battle, he remembers being injured badly. He thinks he's been captured by OZ for seven months but has managed to escape. And he came back to us and we've treated him like this. Now, what we really need to decide now is," Wufei took a breath and met eyes with everyone in the room one at a time, "do we tell him?"  
  
Quatre chewed his lip and looked at Trowa. Trowa frowned slightly and looked at Heero. This was hardest on him most of all. What kind of decision was this for him to make, for any of them to make? Tell a guy who thinks he is your friend that he's not. Tell him all his memories, all his experiences, all his feelings belong to someone else? Someone else who is dead?  
  
"This is not fair," Heero said quietly. That summed up everything Heero had ever experienced.  
  
Quatre, always gentle and caring, spoke. "It would shatter him if we told him."  
  
"But if he finds out by himself, it could be worse," Wufei pointed out. "Especially if he finds out we knew all along."  
  
"We can't let him carry on thinking he's someone he's not," Heero said quietly. "He was created by OZ. We should kill him."  
  
All the pilots knew that was what they should do. It was the most prudent course of action. It would stop OZ getting their hands on him, it would stop him living on stolen memories and it would mean that they wouldn't have to live with the pain of existing with their deceased best friend's clone.  
  
But not one of them could bare the thought of doing it.  
  
"We should keep him with us for a while," said Quatre. "We need to destroy that OZ facility that created him in order to make sure this does not happen again. We will need him to tell us where it is."  
  
They all nodded at the logic of that.  
  
They all looked at one another and an unspoken decision passed between them.  
  
"We'll have to tell him some time though," said Wufei.  
  
"And we will," said Trowa. "Just not yet."  
  
"This is going to be hard," Quatre said. They all agreed. Living with someone that thought, acted and spoke exactly like someone who they knew to be dead was going to be tough.  
  
However, all of them were shamefully wishing that it might bring back a little of what they had lost.  
  
"We must all agree," said Heero. "Never to forget that our Duo is dead. We must not try and replace him, however much we may like to."  
  
"We must do justice to his memory," Wufei said.  
  
They all nodded. This was going to be very, very hard.  
  
  
  
Author's note: more to come very soon. Should have another chapter up soon. For all the new readers, how do you like it so far? 


	4. Chapter 4

Duo looked up as the pilots all came back into the room. He couldn't understand the looks on their faces. They all tried not to meet his eyes.  
  
Quatre came up to him and untied him. "We're sorry for treating you like this, Duo," Quatre said. "We've been –" he thought quickly "– fed some false information."  
  
Duo looked at them all. He chewed on his lip. Something had happened to them while he'd been gone. This 'false information' must have led them to believe that he'd never be returning. And if he'd been gone for seven months, he guessed he couldn't really blame them for being skeptical about his sudden appearance. But they seemed to be ok now. At least he thought they were.  
  
He breathed a sigh of relief as he rubbed his wrists.  
  
"So, you believe me now?" he asked.  
  
Trowa and Wufei nodded while Heero stared at him oddly. Suddenly, Quatre surprised him considerably by flinging his arms around Duo's neck. "Oh, we've missed you, Duo," he said with conviction.  
  
Duo smiled sheepishly and hugged the Arabian boy back. "Hey, hey," Duo said, pleased that he had actually been missed, but slightly embarrassed at the display of emotion, especially in front of Trowa, who, he knew, was fiercely possessive of his blonde lover. "I'm back now, that's all that matters, ne?"  
  
Quatre pulled back. His aquamarine eyes were dancing. He knew he must remember that Duo had not actually returned, but it was hard not to be happy at the illusion. So long as remembered it was an illusion, it was ok.  
  
Duo grinned at the others. Some of the ice melted out of all their eyes. They were all falling into the same delusional security blanket as Quatre. Duo was alive and healthy and exactly as they all remembered him. If they allowed themselves to believe, just a for a small while, that this was Duo, then perhaps the clone wouldn't catch on until they were ready to tell him. Just like Quatre, they all told themselves that as long as they remembered it was only a temporary illusion, they could be happy for a while.  
  
Duo found himself suddenly the center of a very emotional and very tight group hug. Whilst at the same time it almost crushed him (I mean, those pilots are all strong; four hugging you all at once has got to be akin to climbing into an activated car crusher) it made him glow inside. They were his friends; they did care about him. While it sort of spooked him to see Trowa, Wufei and even Heero all smiling like simpletons and glomping onto him so tightly he could hardly breathe, it was nice to be reassured that he did have friends.  
  
"Ok, ok, guys?" Duo choked out. "This is really sweet and all, but you are actually killing me here."  
  
A ripple of rare laughter ran through them and they released the red and panting Duo. Some sleepy conversation followed, mostly Duo bragging about his heroic escape by climbing over a fence, when it was punctuated by a colossal yawn from Quatre.  
  
"Sorry, Duo," Quatre apologised, blushing. "But I'm beat." He glanced at his watch. "By Allah, it's almost four a.m."  
  
At the mention of sleep all of them suddenly realised they were all shattered. The oxygen supply in the room was suddenly severely depleted by five sleepy Gundam pilots all yawning in unison.   
  
"I think it's time to hit the sack," Duo said.  
  
"There's no spare bed," Heero remarked. He did not allow himself to dwell on the reasons why he had made the observation first.  
  
"Damn," Duo said. "Oh well, I can crash on the sofa tonight. That is unless Wuffie is willing to double up?" Duo winked suggestively at the Shenlong pilot.  
  
"Don't even think about it, Maxwell," Wufei warned.  
  
Duo laughed heartily.  
  
God, it's so much like old times, Trowa thought. He was secretly worried that they were all going to fall into the trap they had within that same hour all agreed to avoid.  
  
"There's a spare sleeping bag upstairs," Quatre said. "I'll go and get it for you."  
  
"Thanks, Q-man," Duo said as the boy rushed upstairs.  
  
"Well, I'm off to stake my claim on my bed before anyone else gets to it," Wufei said darkly, looking meaningfully at Duo.  
  
Duo blinked innocently. "I wouldn't dream of it Wu-baby."  
  
"Goodnight, Maxwell," Wufei said forcefully.  
  
Duo giggled as Wufei left.  
  
"Goodnight Duo," Trowa said, patting Duo on the shoulder. There was something in Trowa's eyes that touched Duo deeply and his idiotic grin melted to a genuine smile.  
  
"See ya tomorrow, Trowa," Duo said.  
  
Trowa threw a glance at Heero and left. Heero couldn't tell what Trowa had wanted to say in that glance.  
  
Heero pulled his gaze to Duo. Duo was twisting his slim fingers but his eyes were steady as he gazed at him.  
  
Heero couldn't stop himself. He stepped forward and hugged Duo. It seemed so real; everything he'd ever missed out on, all the opportunities he had missed with Duo were once more standing before him in all their braided glory. "I've missed you, Duo," Heero said with feeling.  
  
Heero felt Duo's arms encircle his waist. Duo sighed in contentment in Heero's embrace. "I've missed you too…"  
  
Heero steeled himself and pulled away. He mustn't allow himself to give in to the temptation. He loved Duo, not this boy. This boy who looked like Duo. This boy who thought like Duo. This boy who felt like Duo.  
  
The boy who looked, thought and felt like Duo looked at Heero with Duo's impossibly deep eyes. The same feelings he had always seen in Duo's eyes, but somehow he had missed, Heero could see there, in Duo's eyes, in Duo's face framed by Duo's silky, honey chestnut hair.  
  
Heero felt he could just let himself fall into those eyes and be content to stay there for the rest of eternity.  
  
Duo leant forward slightly. He was almost certain of Heero's feelings toward him. If that first impassioned kiss when he had arrived was anything to go by…but then Heero had almost killed him in some fury he still did not understand. But Duo did not care. Heero stood there, bare inches away from him, his eyes silent and deep, his messy hair falling in his eyes exactly the way he remembered it.   
  
Duo slid his eyes shut and leant forward further to brush his lips against Heero's. But to Duo's chagrin, Heero pulled back before they made contact.  
  
Heero took a step back. Duo could make nothing from his eyes. He felt slightly hurt. Had he misread Heero?  
  
"Goodnight, Duo," Heero said.  
  
Duo thought he saw Heero struggle as he turned around and walked away. He paused at the door. Without looking round he said, "I'm glad you're back."  
  
Duo knew he meant it. He smiled. "Goodnight, Hee-chan." Heero left. There was still time, Duo thought. They still had time.  
  
Quatre returned with the sleeping bag and pillows. Duo commenced to once more yawn again loudly. Quatre flitted around making sure Duo was comfortable before switching out the light.  
  
"Sweet dreams, Duo," Duo heard Quatre say as he closed the door.   
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
"You lost him?" Lady Une was not amused.  
  
The captain had to physically grip his hands together to stop them from trembling, "Yes, Lady Colonel," he said with a shaking voice. "He jumped me and caught me off guard…"  
  
"No excuses Captain," Lady Une stood from behind her desk. "We could have had the room surrounded in four seconds had he made a move. You unplugged the security camera and I'm pretty sure I knew why."  
  
The captain turned bright red but did not make the mistake of trying to deny anything.  
  
"Get your things, Captain," Lady Une said, turning her back on him. "Commander Trieze does not allow scum like you in his ranks. I will have two guards around to your quarters in an hour to escort you from the premises."  
  
"Yes, Lady Colonel," the captain mumbled. "Thank you, Lady Colonel."  
  
"You are dismissed. Send in the doctor."  
  
The captain left and the doctor nervously shuffled in.  
  
"What went wrong?" Lady Une did not face the man as she spoke.  
  
"I'm not exactly sure, Colonel," the doctor admitted.  
  
"Take and educated guess, then." It was impossible to miss the threat in her words.  
  
The doctor took a deep breath. "I think that something has gone wrong in the way we fixed his memories. He does not realise he is a clone. He thinks he is Duo Maxwell."  
  
Lady Une nodded and turned. She had expected as much. "So, after we, at last, had managed to kill off one of those Gundam pilots, we then paid you considerable sums of money and time for you to reincarnate him and set him loose to fight against us again?"  
  
The doctor looked at the floor. "Sorry Ma'am," he said. "It's just the captain was in such a rush…"  
  
"The captain is no longer anything you need be concerned about, Doctor," Lady Une said. She sat down behind her desk and peered at him through her glasses. "Can you fix this? We still want a Gundam pilot to fight for us. Can you build a new one with the same fighting capability, but this time make sure he doesn't wake up think he's someone who is dead?"  
  
"I think so, Colonel," he said. "But to build him again would take many months, and the research on top of that to find out how to avoid the same problem again…it could be close to a year before we were finished."  
  
"What if we got back the one you've already built? Could you find out what went wrong and then use the same body?"  
  
The doctor blinked for a second. "I should imagine so but to alter his mind would be difficult…"  
  
"Nonsense," said Une. "You programmed him didn't you? You can reprogram him."  
  
The doctor nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. Whatever you say."  
  
"Good," Lady Une looked down at papers on her desk. "Then we shall get your pet back for you, Doctor. Dismissed."  
  
TBC real soon! Please tell me what you thick, all comments are highly appreciated 


	5. Chapter 5

The next day all the pilots awoke early, as usual, except for Duo. Even after the rest of them were showered and dressed and were coming down the stairs, Duo was still snoring softly on the sofa in the living room.   
  
Even when Heero went in there to type up and send a report to the scientists of the discovered research facility, the clone did not wake. Heero smiled slightly and fondly watched the boy curled up in the sleeping bag. He decided that in the report he would only say that they had discovered the research facility. He mentioned nothing of clones. He thought that if the colonies found out about that they would want the technology themselves. Heero didn't think it was the sort of technology to be just handing out. He didn't like the idea of such an inhumane way of producing and training soldiers, which he was certain the equipment would be used for.  
  
Also, deep down, he didn't want the scientists to find out about Duo. They would either have Heero shoot him or keep him on to make up the missing member of their team. Heero wasn't sure that he wanted to do either.  
  
It should have only taken a few minutes to compile the report and send it off, coded and secured. But Heero kept having his attention diverted by the sleeping boy on the sofa. Every small twitch in his sleep, every soft sigh or breath Heero watched with rapture. Duo had always looked heavenly when he slept. All the troubles of the war, of his confused feelings and of his tragic past dropped from him as he slumbered. Heero liked to observe the small time that Duo had that was untroubled.   
  
Heero propped his chin up on his palm with his elbow resting on the desk and for a while just allowed himself to watch the boy slumber. Duo sighed in his sleep and snuggled his face into the pillow. A delicate hand emerged from the sleeping bag and drowsily groped for something. When it didn't seem to find what it wanted it gave up and rested on the pillow beside the angelic face.  
  
Heero wanted to wake up every morning to that sleepy, peaceful face. He wanted to be the thing that Duo's wandering hand had groped for.  
  
Heero shook his head, dispelling such thoughts. He stood up and shut the laptop then made his way resolutely past the sleeping Duo to the door. He did pause momentarily to allow himself the amusement of watching the sleeping boy fumble the end of his long braid of hair into his mouth and suck on it like a baby with his dummy.  
  
Heero allowed himself a small chuckle and slipped out of the room quietly. The rest of the pilots were all in the kitchen nibbling on their meager breakfasts.  
  
Wufei looked up as Heero entered. "Where's Duo?" he asked.  
  
"He's still asleep," Heero stated whilst pouring himself a mug of coffee.  
  
"What?" asked Wufei. "You didn't wake him? We've got a mission to plan."  
  
"Let the boy sleep, Wufei," Quatre said quickly before Heero could respond. "He had a tiring day yesterday."  
  
"Yes, but we need to know where this base is so we can plan our mission," Wufei pointed out, shoveling another spoonful of grapefruit into his mouth.  
  
"The mission can wait," said Heero, looking out the window.  
  
The rest of the pilots fell speechless. They all exchanged concerned glances. Since when did Heero put anything before a mission?  
  
"Heero," Trowa said carefully. "Are you going out again this evening?"  
  
"Of course," said Heero, putting their minds a little at rest. "Why wouldn't I be?"  
  
Heero knew what they were thinking. They were thinking that he was falling in love with the clone. Well, maybe he was. But he wouldn't let anything come of it. It wasn't Duo. He wasn't going to shame Duo and himself by trying to replace him with a clever copy.  
  
Trowa continued to chew on his toast, Quatre his cereal and Wufei his grapefruit and still no one stirred from the living room.  
  
It was only as Quatre was clanking crockery around in the sink when a bedraggled, yawning and half-dressed Duo lumbered his way out of the living room and into the kitchen.   
  
"Morning, Duo," Quatre said brightly. "Sleep well?"  
  
Duo didn't seem to hear him. He slumped into a chair and murmured a word, "Coffee."  
  
Trowa poured him a cup.   
  
"Thanks, man," he said and gulped down a few mouthfuls. A little more awake he peered around at the rest of the people in the kitchen. "God almighty," he mumbled. "What the hell are you all doing up this early?"  
  
"It's almost nine o'clock, Duo," Heero informed him.  
  
"I repeat," Duo said. "What the hell are you all doing up this early?"  
  
"We've got a mission to plan," Trowa said.  
  
"Oh yeah?" asked Duo, gulping down more of the strong coffee.  
  
"We're going to destroy that base that you found." Heero stated.  
  
"Ah," said Duo, standing. "I guess we're gonna need my help. Well, I better go grab a shower or I'll be falling asleep in my coffee."  
  
Duo turned and walked out the door, sleep-tangled braid swaying against his back. When he had finished showering in the tiny bathroom, Duo 'borrowed' a comb of Trowa's and raked it through his wet and tangled hair. With much cursing and whimpering, he finally got the dripping, chestnut mass virtually knot-free and plaited it back. He resented having to still tie his hair back with the OZ captain's underwear elastic, but he had searched everywhere and the pilots had none of his stuff left over from all those months ago. Duo was only slightly hurt but he thought that the pilots had been through something tough and so he decided no to make a deal about it.  
  
"Hey, Heero!" Duo called down the stairs. "I'm just gonna borrow some clothes, ok? Ok."  
  
Without waiting for an answer, Duo rifled through Heero's cupboard for some clothes.  
  
"Spandex, spandex, spandex," Duo muttered in disapproval. "Does the guy have anything else? Ah ha!" Triumphantly, Duo held aloft a pair of faded blue jeans. They were a bit big for Duo, but a better fit than the old captain's clothes. Then he grabbed the only top he could find (surprise, surprise: a green tank top) and pulled it over his head. Bare-foot and with a wet braid bouncing down his back, Duo none the less felt pretty much awake now.  
  
Awake enough to slide down the banister with an excited yell. Once he had picked himself up off the hall floor and checked that that cracking noise he had heard as he had landed was nothing serious, Duo entered the lounge with a flourish. "And he arrives! The crowd's going wild!"  
  
Heero, Trowa, Wufei and Quatre all stared at him blankly.  
  
Duo sighed and dropped himself down on a dusty pouf. All the pilots were gathered around the coffee table with maps, schematics and reports littering the top. Trowa and Quatre were on the couch that Duo had occupied that night, Wufei sat in the chair Duo had forcefully occupied the previous evening and Heero sat on the floor, cross-legged.  
  
Duo shuffled the pouf up to the coffee table. "Ok, so what have we got?"  
  
Quatre detached a piece of paper from the rest and spread it out on top. "This is a map of the immediate area," he explained. "Now, we didn't give you much time to explain last night, but we need to know whereabouts this base is."  
  
Duo frowned in concentration and peered at the map. "No, it was further away than this. It took me over four hours to get here last night, and that wasn't from the base."  
  
Duo rummaged around amongst the maps until he found a larger one. He pointed. "This was the safe house I spent the night in after I escaped," he said. "And, to get there from the base…"  
  
Duo lapsed into thought and examined the map. He traced the roads with his fingers, remembering, as best he could, his journey from the base to the safe house. He finally tapped a patch of parkland on the map. "It was here, I'm certain," he said.  
  
Heero leant forward to examine it. "Private parkland. Hills and trees. Easy place to hide a small research facility."  
  
The others nodded.  
  
"There's one thing I don't get," Duo said. "Why would they be holding me in a research place? The security was a shambles; it was peanuts to escape. I don't understand how they had expected to keep me there."  
  
The other pilots of course all knew the answer to that. The clone was not being held captive there; it had been created there. The security was lax because OZ had not expected the clone to want to escape when he woke up. But the pilots could not explain that to Duo.  
  
"We don't know," said Wufei casually. "Maybe they thought you'd be too weak to escape."  
  
Duo snorted and was about to start bragging when Trowa brought them back to the subject.  
  
"It's quite a distance form here," he observed.  
  
Heero looked up. "Well, in the Gundams it should only take…is that my shirt?"  
  
"You said I could borrow it!" Duo said defensively.  
  
"I said nothing of the sort," Heero said darkly.  
  
"Aw, c'mon Hee-chan," Duo pouted. "I don't wanna wear that smelly OZ uniform again today. It makes me look like a fat old guy. Plus, I think I kinda suit green and skimpy." Duo grinned and spread his arms twirling at the waist to display his costume.  
  
"Don't gib the gear!" Heero warned him. He sighed. "You're doing my washing for the rest of the week then."  
  
"Aw, man! But - "  
  
"No buts," Heero said flatly. "And those are my jeans as well!"  
  
Trowa jumped in before there was bloodshed. "Ok, ok. Now, I think that we are gonna have to do a bit of work on the Gundams today."  
  
"Yeah," Quatre agreed. "After last night and with this mission, we're gonna have to spend most of today…"  
  
Duo sulked and they continued to plan their mission. Washing, for a whole week! Man, Heero was a sadistic type when he wanted to be.  
  
"We should go tonight," Quatre said. "In case they've started to build another…" he stopped suddenly and blushed before he could say 'clone'. The others looked at him warily.  
  
"What?" Duo asked. "Build what?"  
  
"Defenses," Heero put in bluntly, examining a schematic. "They will probably expect our attack and might try to get in some reinforcements or build up some defenses."  
  
"Oh," said Duo, frowning slightly. Heero had been a little too quick to reply for Quatre. "Ok."  
  
Quatre threw an apologetic glance at Heero when Duo wasn't looking. Heero ignored it and they carried on working.  
  
Duo was feeling a bit left out. He had been sad to discover that Deathscythe was gone. Therefore he couldn't take part in the mission. He didn't really have much more to contribute to the planning other than the occasional information on the facility, the little he had of it.  
  
He soon got bored and went to get a snack. He rummaged around in the boxes but found nothing that appealed to him. "Ok, who let Quatre do the shopping again?" he called out accusingly. No one answered him.  
  
He grabbed a random jacket and pulled on a pair of grubby trainers that were resting by the front door. He frowned in distaste to see what looked like bloodstains on the trainers. He dismissed that and walked back to the living room. "I'm going out for snacks," he announced.  
  
Heero immediately stood. "I'll go with you, OZ might be looking for you."  
  
"No," said Wufei, giving Heero a warning look. Heero had been too eager. "I'll go. You need to stay here and use your laptop to try and pull the files out of OZ's system."  
  
Heero and Wufei glared at each other for a time. Trowa and Quatre looked on, holding their breath whilst Duo looked on, confused.   
  
"Guys, it's no big deal," Duo said. "I'm just going to town for some snacks." No one was listening.  
  
Heero ground his teeth. "I have not forgotten, Wufei," he said, stabbing out the words.  
  
"I never said you had," Wufei replied. He pointedly stood from his chair and walked over to Duo. "C'mon, Maxwell," he said. "Let's go."  
  
Duo nodded, thinking it best to hold his tongue, for once. Until he got to the front door, that is. "Hey, Trow-man? Mind if we borrow your bike?"  
  
"You touch that bike, Duo," Trowa warned from the living room. "And you die."  
  
"Ok, ok," Duo said. "Anything you say, buddy. C'mon Wuffie, I'm starving!"  
  
"It's Wu-fei," Wufei snarled.  
  
The three pilots in the living room heard the front door open and close. A short time later, there was the harsh, grating sound of a motorbike starting up.  
  
"Duo!" Trowa rushed to the window just in time to see a plume of dust kicked up by the speeding motorbike and hear a gleeful "Yeee-ha!" from the braided boy as they raced off down the dusty road on Trowa's bike. "I'll kill him," Trowa said dangerously. "I'll strangle him with his own goddamn hair, so help me I will!"  
  
Quatre stifled a giggle. But the smile fell from his face as he looked at Heero. His fists were clenched and he looked like he might go into the omae o koroso routine at any moment.  
  
"Heero?" he asked carefully.  
  
Heero glared at him. "Who does Wufei think he is? What is he afraid that I'll do?"  
  
Quatre gulped. "Heero, he was just trying to look out for you. We all know how close you were to Duo…"  
  
"Do you?" Heero bit out the words.  
  
Trowa glared at Heero as he settled down next to Quatre. "Heero, you may not like to hear this, but it is for you we are saying it. And you know it…"  
  
Trowa and Heero engaged in a battle of death glares. It was a fascinating thing to behold and there were several doubtful moments in the battle but eventually Trowa won, because Heero knew he was right. Heero stared at the floor as if it had done him personal wrong.  
  
"Heero, we all know that your strength of will is iron-clad," Quatre continued. "But now you know what love does. It completely screws up the way you think. It'll break your barriers, Heero."  
  
Heero looked up at the pair on the sofa who were just trying to help him. But it pained Heero to know that he did have this weakness in his will.  
  
"You really think that I'm gonna fall for the clone when you know how strongly I felt for Duo?"  
  
Trowa and Quatre looked at each other. "Heero, he is Duo."  
  
"He is not!"  
  
"Then why were you so ready to jump up and go with him to town?" asked Trowa accusingly. "And don't give me any bullshit about OZ. He will have covered his tracks perfectly, there is no way they could have found him this quickly."  
  
Heero sat frozen, anger boiled in his eyes.  
  
"Heero, we're only trying to help you," Quatre said, leaning forward to command Heero's entire attention. "It would be lovely to see you happy again and I'm sure that if you let yourself you could be happy with Duo's clone. It would certainly make him happy and if that is what you want then I certainly won't stand in your way…"  
  
Heero sat in silence and listened. It never ceased to amaze him how well his fellow pilots knew him.  
  
"I'm just thinking about you. If I could bring myself to do so, I'd clam up about this and let you fall again for Duo. It would be lovely for all of us…" Quatre took a breath and thought hard about his next words. "But, I think, you need to think through what you want. You wouldn't notice any difference between him and the original Duo. He'd be exactly the same in all respects so you wouldn't be missing anything that would have happened with our Duo. But, what's best for you Heero?"  
  
Heero just stared at him. Trowa was listening and stayed respectfully silent.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean, will you ever be able to enjoy your relationship with him? Will you ever allow yourself to be happy when you know that he is not the original? You may decide that, yes, you could be happy. It would be just like moving on, not necessarily getting over Duo's death, but learning to cope with it enough so that you can find happiness with someone else. But, he is not someone else…" Quatre paused again. "You may always suspect that you had fallen for him because he is Duo. I think you may never be able give what either you or he deserves to the relationship because you may always suspect that you had gone to him to forget Duo had died – "  
  
"I would never do that!" Heero said strongly.  
  
"I doubt you would," Quatre, said unperturbed. "You would go to him because you have moved on and he just happens to have all the same things that made you fall in love with the first Duo, but would you ever completely convince yourself of that?"  
  
Heero understood. Falling in love with the clone would be exactly the same as falling in love with Duo all over again. Heero wouldn't be going on to someone else. He would be going back to Duo, carpe diem, this time doing what he had not done before to get what they both wanted. But would he ever be able to forgive himself? Would he ever be able to believe that he did not do it to replace something he had lost?  
  
"This is not fair," Heero said quietly.  
  
"But if you can convince yourself of the truth," Quatre said. "If you can believe whole-heartedly that you are not betraying the original Duo, which you would not be doing, in my opinion, then I think you should consider doing what you can do to be happy and to make him happy."  
  
Heero looked at him, confused. "Then why did you stop me going with him?"  
  
"Because we knew you had to think about this side of it first," Trowa said. "If you had rushed in the way you were doing, then you would be doing it for the very reasons you fear. We're just trying to save you pain Heero, stop the self-torment before it begins. And it would begin Heero, if you went to him not completely sure of yourself. If you weren't completely sure that you hadn't gone to him to replace Duo in you life…"  
  
There was a moment of silence as Heero thought about this.  
  
"You're strong, Heero," said Quatre. "With time you would be able to cope with this. But we don't even know whether we can keep him with us yet."  
  
"We haven't even decided that we are going to let him live," Trowa said darkly.  
  
"And when he finds out," Quatre reminded them. "Which he is bound to do eventually, what happens then?"  
  
Heero saw the blonde boy's point. Who knew what impact that would have on Duo to find out he was a clone? And if Heero went ahead and started the relationship he was desperate to have, what would Duo think after he had discovered the truth? He would think that Heero had used him as an aid to ease heartbreak, the very thing Heero was afraid of doing. Duo would feel betrayed and used. Did Heero want to risk that inevitable and painful experience merely so he could 'move on' as Quatre put it?  
  
"I would never try to replace Duo," Heero said with conviction. "Nothing could ever bring back what I have lost. I will love him forever. If I did love his clone it would not be to replace him. It would be like loving Duo all over again and I imagine that I would care as deeply for him as I did for Duo because he is a reincarnation of what I fell in love with. But I would never forget that he is a copy and the person I did first fall in love with is dead." Heero almost believed his own words. But he still feared what Quatre had pointed out. If he did get together with Duo's clone, the eternal question would be going around in his head the entire time: Have I betrayed the person I love?  
  
However, at his speech, Trowa and Quatre looked at him in admiration. They nodded, satisfied Heero had seen their point. Heero could continue on his own now and they would not interfere. They knew that Heero understood the risks that were landed on him and they also knew that Heero would cope with them in the ways only he could. They could not tell him what to do with his heart.  
  
They continued to plan their mission.  
  
TBC real soon 


	6. Chapter 6

Wufei made a mental note not to ever go shopping with Duo Maxwell again, especially when said braided pilot drove them there on a motorbike. It took the poor Chinese boy a full ten minutes of recuperation before he could finally peel himself off the motorbike seat and prize his clenched hands off the back of Duo's shirt.  
  
And of course, Duo Maxwell, despite being a clone, could not just simply choose some snacks, pay and then go. Oh no. He pondered different brands, loudly compared different fillings and flavors whilst all the time cracking jokes about the product names. And of course, once Wufei had finally convinced him with a shaking fist to just choose some and go, Duo decided it would be a good time to get some new clothes.  
  
"I mean, I'm out on a limb already wearing Hee-chan's clothes today," Duo reasoned. "If I have to wear his clothes for much more time he's gonna feel the urge to commit genocide."  
  
Wufei decided not to mention that he was also getting that urge. And so, it was another grueling half an hour until Duo had decided on some plain black shirts and jeans. Wufei soon gave up trying to decide why it had taken Duo so long to decide on the simplest items in the store.  
  
Wufei left Duo to pay and staggered outside, needing fresh air and space. He leaned against a newspaper stall and waited for Duo.  
  
Duo emerged soon after in his new clothes and with a shopping bag. He was just opening his mouth to greet Wufei far louder than was necessary when the opposite side of the small street erupted with gunfire.   
  
Wufei was just diving for cover behind the newspaper stand when he felt fire course up his leg. He landed on the pavement behind the relative safety of the newspaper stall and cringed in pain. Duo was close behind.  
  
"Wu-man, are you hit?" but Duo's words were drowned out as another eruption of gunfire shattered the wooden back of the stall above their heads. The stall's owner decided to abandon his magazines to their fate and fled.  
  
Duo scooted over to the edge and pulled a gun from somewhere. Wufei tried to ignore the fiery pain in his leg as he readied his own weapon. There were almost a dozen armed men across the street, all dressed as civilians. OZ. They had all taken up strategic positions and were shooting angrily, furious that their prey had taken cover. The two boys carefully fired around the edges of the newspaper stand. The gunshots tore the air apart with noise and flying bullets and splinters from the newspaper stall. Wufei and Duo between them had managed to pick off five of the attackers before their ammo ran low.  
  
Duo cursed and ducked back behind their cover. And empty magazine clattered to the floor beside him. He looked at Wufei with concern. His right calf was bleeding badly, though he didn't seem to notice it. His oriental face was contorted with steely determination as he fired his depleting supply of ammunition at their assailants. But he wasn't going to be able to run away.  
  
Duo scooted over to Wufei. "Listen, pal," Duo shouted to be heard over the gunfire. "Stay right here, don't move. I'll be back in a second."  
  
Wufei nodded but did not take his eyes off his work.  
  
Duo ran down the ally behind the newspaper stall, ducking low so that their assailants would not notice him fleeing. He vaulted a wall at the end and found himself in another street. After taking a moment to get his bearings and notice the screeching of sirens in the distance, Duo burst into a sprint. His braid flew out behind him as he ran, knowing Wufei's life was at stake. He leapt up onto the roof of a moving car, much to the driver's consternation and proceeded to nimbly jump from one to another until he was on the other side. He skidded around a corner, knocking over a woman with a basket. Jumping over her recumbent form he sprinted furiously down the street and screeched to a halt when he drew up next to the bike parked by the side of the road.  
  
He leapt on and the engine roared to life with his angry twist of the keys. With a smell of burning rubber he wheeled the great steel machine around and accelerated off through the traffic.  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
Wufei had only been left on his own a few minutes when he knew he was down to his last three bullets. The assailants seemed like they could go on forever. The pain in his leg had started to make his head throb and it was making him dizzy. He clenched his jaw and held firm. Peering around the edge of the now shattered newspaper stand he fired off his last remaining bullets. He heard a satisfactory yelp. And an even more satisfactory screech of stressed tires.   
  
Wufei looked down the street and Duo was hurtling towards them at breakneck speed on Trowa's motorcycle. The firing stopped for one startled moment. Duo crashed into the remains of the newspaper stand, sending fragments of wood and paper flying. Wufei used all his strength to ignore the pain and hauled himself onto the back seat of the motorbike with the aid of Duo's outstretched arm.  
  
Bullets fired wildly about their heads as the motorbike screamed away.  
  
"Wufei, hang on tight, man," Duo shouted. Wufei just managed to oblige. Duo performed a serious of bone-jarring and sickening twists and turns about the streets of the town, leaving total havoc in his wake. He soon twisted their journey enough to make sure he had lost any followers and turned out onto the highway that led out of town.  
  
Duo chewed at his lip as he felt Wufei's grip on him weaken. He must have lost a lot of blood. If they stopped now he would lose more. With one hand he grabbed one of the Chinese boy's arms and wrapped it tightly around his waist and held it there to make sure Wufei did not fall. One- handed he steered the motorbike down the highway. He pushed the bike into accelerating even more. He had to get his injured friend back quickly.  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
It was just as the three pilots were clearing away the paperwork of their mission having completed the planning, when they heard a terrific screeching of brakes and a grating sound of gravel being flung up before protesting tires.  
  
"My bike!" Trowa cried mournfully. "What the hell has Maxwell done to it?"  
  
Then they looked up to the sound of the front door being opened roughly and followed shortly by the sound of heavy breathing and lumbering steps. Quatre, Trowa and Heero exchanged a single glance and rushed out into the hall.  
  
Wufei was limping badly and had one arm slung over Duo's shoulders. They were both filthy with dust and Wufei's leg was wet and sticky with blood.  
  
"By Allah," Quatre cried. "What happened!"  
  
Trowa and Heero moved forward to relieve Duo of his burden and help Wufei into the lounge.  
  
"Just outside the store," an exhausted and traumatized-looking Duo started to explain, "I was just coming out – "  
  
"Go and get the first aid kit from upstairs, Duo," Heero said firmly, helping Trowa to ease Wufei down on the sofa. He was pale but his breathing was ok and his eyes were focussed.  
  
"But I gotta tell you – "  
  
"Now!" said Heero sternly.  
  
Duo just looked hurt for a moment but then rushed upstairs to find the kit. As soon as he was gone, they looked at Wufei. Quatre handed him some water and Heero gently folded up his trousers to expose his injured calf.  
  
"It was OZ," said Wufei, confirming their suspicions. "It was definitely them. But it was odd…" Wufei paused to drink the water and cringe in pain for a moment. "I was in full view of them for ages. They only started firing when Duo came out…"  
  
They looked at each other with concern.  
  
"They were after Duo?" Heero asked quietly.  
  
Wufei nodded. "Duo dived with me behind a stall when it started. But they could have got either of us in the head with a single shot as soon as he emerged. They aimed at Duo and aimed low – " Wufei frowned, " – as you can see."  
  
"They were only looking to maim," said Trowa. "And they did not recognise you, Wufei, so they must be local troops."  
  
"Troops from the research facility looking to recapture Duo," Heero said needlessly. He examined Wufei's wound. It wasn't too deep; the bullet had just nicked the flesh. It was bleeding still but all it needed was some cleaning and some fresh bandages to keep out infection. "It's not too bad, Wufei."  
  
"Could have fooled me," Wufei growled, wincing as Heero poked at his leg.  
  
"Hang on," Quatre suddenly gave voice. "How were they able to find him so quickly?"  
  
Their conversation was halted as they heard the drawn-out squeak and then a loud bump of someone sliding down a banister. Duo presently entered the room, rubbing his backside and brandishing the first aid kit.  
  
"How you doin' Wuffie?" Duo asked. Heero found himself momentarily mesmerized by the beauty of Duo's face that could not be tarnished by all the dirt or worry that was etched onto it.  
  
"I'll live," Wufei grumbled.  
  
Trowa took the first aid kit and soon the wound was clean and bandaged. They had all managed between them to cook up an evasive explanation to satisfy Duo. He didn't look totally convinced however.  
  
Trowa sat down at Heero's laptop and Quatre and Heero came to sit close to him so their conversation wouldn't be overheard by Duo, who was diligently helping Wufei get comfortable.  
  
"We'll need to find somewhere else," Trowa said. "If they tracked him down to this area they will probably be able to find us quickly."  
  
"Is there anywhere near?" asked Quatre.  
  
Trowa's fingers clicked at the keys. He shook his head. "The only place anywhere near is one hundred miles to the north."  
  
"That's not good enough," Heero said. "We need somewhere closer, just for tonight, until we've blown up that place. Is there anything else at all?"  
  
Trowa searched a little more. "Well," said Trowa carefully. "There is somewhere a bit closer, forty miles south-east in the middle of the forest. A converted bomb shelter with a large hanger hollowed out in the cave below the forest floor. Perfect for storing the Gundams. But…" Trowa looked at them both. "It hasn't been used in about twenty years. I doubt there will be any heating or electricity. And it's unstable. The cave has already partially collapsed."  
  
Quatre frowned.  
  
"Well, it'll have to do for tonight. This mission must be completed tonight." Heero said in his no-one-argues-or-you'll-regret-it tone.  
  
No one argued.  
  
It took them a while to move over to the dilapidated safe 'cave'. The entrance was in a cliff face that was covered in trees and vines. It took them some while to find the control to open the huge door and then stash their Gundams inside. They could see rubble on the floor and it was true that the ceiling looked like it might fall at any moment. But Heero had used his tone and no one argued. The living quarters were reached by a small door in the cave wall. It was basically a metal corridor with a few rooms branching off of it. Two bedrooms, a kitchen and one bath room. There was no heating. All was covered in a layer of dust and the metal was rusted in places.  
  
They were impressed to find the electricity still worked though a few light bulbs fizzled out within the first few minutes of operation. There was only cold running water, but it was clean. They decided that Wufei would need the most room for sleeping so he was to share one of the beds with only Duo.  
  
Heero didn't like the realisation of how much he resented this. Duo seemed fairly disappointed as well but managed to hide it. Trowa, Quatre and Heero would share the bed in the other room. Though the two lovers didn't seem to mind, Heero did have the feeling that he was going to feel very uncomfortable in their bed tonight. The term 'third wheel' rolled around in his head like a lead marble.  
  
Duo was assigned as "Wufei-sitter" whilst the three remaining pilots went off to attend their Gundams to make any repairs and to re-plan some of their mission around Wufei's absence.  
  
Wufei was not at all chuffed at not being able to fight and even less chuffed at being condemned to be "looked after" by Duo. Wufei tried to tell himself that Duo was only trying to be kind but he could not help but get annoyed when the tenth round of I-spy turned out to be "p" for "pink boxers with teddy bears". It did not help either that they were ensconced in a windowless room with a flickering light bulb and no heating. Wufei was sitting in the dusty chair and grumbling about the cold. Quatre had kindly remade up all the old mattresses with sheets of their own so the bed was going to be comfy, clean and warm, but that was the only bright side to it. Wufei found that he did not object to the thought of sharing a bed with Duo, but decided it would be wise to avoid Heero's company for a while. But as the prattling of Duo's voice went on and on, Wufei wondered whether he was actually going to get any sleep later that night. This mildly irritating company went on for some while and soon what little light filtered in from the open cave door at the end of the corridor into the living quarters was fading.  
  
Wufei was mildly surprised at the reaction he got when he told Duo he was tired. Duo promptly shut up and sat down to quietly play solitaire on Heero's laptop for a while.  
  
"Duo, are you ok?" Wufei asked after the silence had lasted a full ten minutes.  
  
Duo looked up. "I'm fine, why shouldn't I be?"  
  
Wufei thought he saw something in Duo's eyes. "Duo, is something bothering you?"  
  
Duo shook his head and went back to silently playing on the computer, which just got Wufei even more worried. He was about to inquire further when the rest of the pilots arrived back. After checking Wufei's injury they all settled down to wait out the next two hours they had before they left.  
  
Except for Heero. He grabbed his jacket (once again reminded Duo of his duty to do Heero's washing that week) and set to go out. "I'm going out now," he said simply.  
  
The others all nodded, not even looking up from their tasks, all knowing that he was going where he went every night if he could. They didn't notice Duo watching after Heero curiously as he strolled out of the living quarters.  
  
"Where's he going?" Duo asked.  
  
"The Sanq Kingdom," Quatre replied without thinking.  
  
Trowa and Wufei tried not to physically react.  
  
Duo, naturally, looked confused and slightly hurt. "Why is he going there?"  
  
Quatre looked up. No one else was going to try and rescue him. "He goes every night, Duo," Quatre said. He gulped. He had told the truth because he couldn't think up anything else credible. He knew it was not the whole truth and Duo was certain to get the wrong idea, considering who was queen of the Sanq kingdom, but what else could Quatre say? "Heero goes every night to visit your grave"? He didn't think so.  
  
"Oh," Duo said quietly and looked at the floor.   
  
Quatre was right, Duo had got the wrong idea. Wufei and Trowa exchanged pained glances with him as Duo gazed at the floor in silence. They all knew there was nothing they could say that would not give anything away.  
  
The look that Wufei had noticed at the back of Duo's eyes before was now all over his face. The three pilots were pained to see Duo fight back tears and attacked his game of solitaire with renewed vigor.  
  
This is so hard, thought Quatre. How long are we going to have to keep on lying to him? But how can we possibly tell him the truth?  
  
"Quatre," Trowa spoke. "Shall we go for a walk before we have to go?"  
  
Quatre nodded silently. Trowa could always tell when his blonde lover was distressed and this situation was paying a hard toll on all of them.  
  
"Will you two be ok for a little while?" Quatre asked.  
  
Duo only nodded. Wufei looked away from the boy at the laptop to Quatre. "We'll be fine."  
  
Quatre slipped his hand into Trowa's and they left the tiny room. Once they were outside, Trowa turned to the Arabian.  
  
"Quatre, are you ok?"  
  
Quatre shook his head and stared at the ground. "I thought I could cope, Trowa," he said. "I thought it would be nice to forget for a while that Duo is dead. But I cannot forget. Every time I look at him, my mind screams at me that what I'm doing is wrong…"  
  
Trowa placed a gentle finger under Quatre's chin and eased his face up so he could look into his eyes. "Quatre, you've done nothing wrong."  
  
"But I have," said Quatre. "We should have told him as soon as we knew, Trowa. We should have told him he is a clone…"  
  
"No one could have been expected to break that kind of news to him," Trowa tried to soothe him. "You said yourself, it would have shattered him…"  
  
"But he's living an illusion Trowa!" Quatre exclaimed. He turned his back on Trowa to hide the embarrassing tears of distress that were rising in his eyes. "He's living a lie and that lie is hurting all of us, even him."  
  
Trowa said nothing to start off with. He walked up behind the smaller boy and wrapped his arms around him. For a while there was silence as the wind rustled through the trees around them and groaned in the cave entrance beside them.  
  
"It's going to get harder and harder to tell him, Trowa," Quatre whispered. "The more he lives like this, the harder he'll fall when we tell him. He can tell something's wrong. He's quiet and preoccupied. He knows that we're treating him differently from what he remembers. He thinks he's done something wrong when he hasn't…and Heero. Did you see how hurt he was when he thought that Heero goes every night to see Relena? But how could we tell him that Heero was going to visit his own grave? But now he thinks that Heero has run to Relena while he's been away."  
  
Trowa gave the blonde a comforting squeeze. "Quatre, this is a hard situation for all of us. We can't expect to be able to handle this. How many people's friends come back from the dead and don't realise there is anything wrong?"  
  
"But we need to tell him, Trowa!" Quatre insisted, turning once more to face him. His pretty face was full of concern. "What will he think of us if he learns we've been lying to him?"  
  
"It's too late for that," Trowa said quietly. "We've already lied to him. We've done wrong, Quatre, but everyone makes mistakes. And we acted to try and keep him happy a little longer – "  
  
"Or ourselves," Quatre said. Trowa stared into the aquamarine eyes that were always so full of feeling and now so full of guilt. "How can we be sure we haven't done what we were afraid Heero would do? We've tried to replace Duo."  
  
Trowa shrugged. "Possibly," he said with brutal honesty. "But we're only human, Quatre. No matter what excuses we make, the fact remains that we have lost someone dear to all of us. That kind of hole in your life doesn't go away. It's only natural that we should reach out to something that could fill it again."  
  
"But it won't fill it, Trowa!" Quatre cried and flung himself into Trowa's arms. "It's not Duo! Duo's in the ground in the Sanq Kingdom! Heero's sitting with his grave at this moment. And the longer he believes he is Duo, the more we will hurt him eventually, whether we tell him or if he finds out on his own."  
  
Trowa stroked the blonde locks. He knew that Quatre was right. No matter how objective he tried to be, this was hurting him as well. He knew that there was going to be pain in the future for all of them. Damned OZ was so adept at hurting them even without trying to. Duo was going to find out, and when he did, it was going to have a cataclysmic effect on all of them. Trowa did not know if they had made the right decision when they had decided to hide the truth from the clone, but like he had said so himself, they were all only human. They would put off the pain of the discovery for as long as they could, even if it did mean greater hurt in the future. They all instinctively tried to delay it.   
  
"Quatre," Trowa whispered into his hair. "None of this is our fault. It is OZ's fault. It was OZ that twisted nature and fucked up so that we are all in trouble. Eventually it will be bad on the clone, but what else could we do? We had and still have no choice. This is a no-win situation…"  
  
Quatre clutched Trowa's jumper.  
  
"…But, even if he is a copy, we are still his friends. That will always come through in the end. Even if that body did not experience it, he remembers how much we all care for him and he knows we still do. Even if we've lied to him and he may not be able to forgive us for that, even if he hates us for a time, we will always be his friends, right?"  
  
"Of course," Quatre's voice was muffled in Trowa's chest.   
  
TBC  
  
I would just like to say thank you very much for all the wonderful reviews that you have been giving. Each one means a lot to me and I'm so pleased you took the time to review. I also am very pleased that everyone seems to be enjoying it. 


	7. Chapter 6 Extension

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This isn'y actually a new chapter par se, but it is the end of chapter 6 which I accidently missed off the last post. Sorry! Chapter 7 will be here soon.  
  
"Well then," Trowa said. "He has people to see him through this. He will know that no matter what he is, we will still love him."  
  
"But," Quatre said worriedly. "What if he thinks that he is being an imposter? What if he thinks that we only care for him because he resembles someone we loved who died?"  
  
"We will have to convince him," Trowa said simply. "He knows us and even if it is copied knowledge, that is still a fact that he will know. He will know that we are strong. He will know all these struggles we have been through. He will know that we have not replaced the original Duo with him, even if he denies that knowledge, he will know. And we'll make him understand that, as far as we're concerned, he is Duo, not a replacement. And therefore we will care for him just as much as we did for his original."  
  
Quatre sighed. "You think he will still like us, then?"  
  
"I know he will," Trowa reassured him, pulling back and wiping tears of Quatre's cheeks. "It's only natural that he may feel betrayed or angry with us, but he will know that we are still his friends. He'll come back to us. It will take time, but I know he will, in time, come to accept us again."  
  
"What will we do now?" Quatre's voice was small. The waning sunlight filtered through the leaves and played across his face.  
  
"Right now we will destroy the sons of bitches that did this to Duo and to us," Trowa said. "And then we will discuss with Wufei and Heero when we think we should tell him the truth."  
  
Quatre chewed his lip for a moment and then nodded. They had put it off too long. They would have to tell him some time…but that decision could always wait until tomorrow.  
  
Trowa looked up at the sound of Wing's engines in the distance. He led Quatre a little way off into the trees so that they'd be out of the way of the landing Gundam and so they could have a little quiet time together before they left. They would soon be off to destroy the base.   
  
Wufei looked up as Heero entered the room. His face was as grim as ever. Duo did not look up. He was still working on his solitaire game in the corner of the room.  
  
Wufei watched Heero carefully. Heero was looking at Duo, but Duo refused to meet his gaze. Wufei could not determine what was going through either boy's mind. However, he could take a wild stab that Duo was hurt about Heero supposedly going to see Relena and Heero was hurt by the silent treatment he was getting from the braided pilot.  
  
"Time to go, Heero?" asked Wufei, unable to stand the tension.  
  
Heero merely nodded without taking his eyes off the American. He turned and left the small room without another word. Wufei saw Duo pause in his game and saw his eyes glaze over with anger and hurt.  
  
"Duo?" Wufei asked carefully. "You ok?"  
  
"Oh, just peachy," Duo bit out, violet eyes blazing with furious pain. He checked himself, sighed and shook his head. "Sorry, Wu-man. I didn't mean to snap at you. Just feeling a bit grouchy this evening."  
  
Wufei nodded and shouldered himself into a more comfortable position on the musty old bed.   
  
"It's Wu-fei," Wufei automatically corrected in a sleepy voice.   
  
There was silence in the room for some time longer. Quatre looked in on them before they left to make sure Wufei's leg was ok and to see if Duo had cheered up. He hadn't. 


	8. Chapter 7

Duo gazed at the screen of the thrice-damned laptop without seeing it. He was tearing up inside. All this time, all this time he had been happy because he had told Heero, finally, his feelings and Heero hadn't laughed in his face or punched him out. But all the time Heero had been in love with Relena. Sure, the others had not said it in so many words, but Duo knew a gentle let down when he saw one.  
  
Wufei had disappeared, the small room had disappeared, the laptop, everything had melted away from around him just leaving him in this tiny isolated hole that no one would ever bother to pull him out of. He knew, really, that he should not have expected Heero to wait around for him if he'd been gone so long…but it still hurt. But what if Heero never planned to wait around for him? What if he'd misread Heero's reactions right from the very beginning?  
  
The problem wasn't just with Heero either. The others were acting strange towards him as well. It was as if he had been evicted from their group, as if they didn't trust him any longer. They didn't act the same way he remembered. Sure, they were pleasant enough, but it was little things. Little things like not telling him about the mission, not including him a little more in the planning. They often kept going into soft conversations so he would not hear what they were talking about, sometimes leaving the room or asking him to do so. He remembered being sent upstairs to get the first aid kit whilst they asked Wufei to explain what had happened. Neither had the others told him about when he would start on missions again or when a new Gundam would arrive for him.  
  
And none of them thought to tell him about the seven months he'd been gone. No theories had been suggested as to why he had been captured for so long and not killed or why he could not remember any of his imprisonment.  
  
All these doubts were nibbling away at him like evil black mice, slowly destroying his faith in himself as well as his friends.  
  
He took a deep breath and blinked back the useless tears. The room snapped into sharp focus around him and he noticed he'd won the solitaire game. He closed down the laptop, unable to stand the sight of it any longer. He looked up and saw that Wufei was watching him. He couldn't make out what was going on behind those heavy, onyx eyes but all the same, he was somewhat unnerved that he had been watching him.  
  
"Wufei? Daijoobu desu ka?"  
  
"Hai, but are you?" Wufei asked.  
  
Duo sighed and stretched, a shadow of his grin lighting up his face. "Hai, I'll be ok. Just a bit mixed up, I guess. I'd rather not talk about it, if it's all the same to you, Wu-man."  
  
Wufei nodded. "As long as you stop calling me that."  
  
Duo giggled. He got up, deciding to bury his miseries just for the moment so he would not drive himself mad. He threw himself on the bed next to Wufei, who winced as the bed rocked under his injured leg.  
  
"So, what do you wanna do, Wu-bear?" Duo asked angelically, stretching out on his front, chin in hands, elbows on Wufei's pillow. "You know, we might have ages till they get back."  
  
Wufei felt decidedly uncomfortable at the close proximity of the other (extremely attractive, he belated realised) pilot, but would not let it show. "Stop flirting, Maxwell," he accused, closing his eyes. "Why don't you get some sleep?"  
  
"Flirt? Me?" Duo asked innocently. He laughed. "I'm sorry, Wu-man, it's just your reactions are always priceless!"  
  
Wufei opened his eyes to glare at him. "Oh, is that it is it?" he leaned forward ominously, so he was scant centimeters away from the other pilot's face. "And what if, one day, I react in a way you don't expect?" His voice was husky.  
  
Duo looked…terrified. "Ok, Wu-man," he said, leaning away. "Now you're scaring me."  
  
Wufei chuckled and drew away, once more settling down to sleep.  
  
"Hey Wufei!" Duo said, with realisation. "Was that a joke? Wufei! You just made a joke! This is a cause for celebration!"  
  
Wufei groaned inwardly as Duo sat up on the bed and started to sing, very loudly, 'For he's a jolly good fellow'. Wufei clutched his hands over his ears and turned over. He just wanted to sleep!  
  
He opened his eyes. Duo had stopped. Wufei craned his neck to observe the braided pilot and was surprised to find him sitting still, his hands frozen in mid-clap and listening intently.  
  
"What's wrong?" Wufei asked.  
  
"Shh!" Duo hushed him. "Listen…"  
  
Wufei strained his ears. Nothing came to him at first, but then…loud humming noises, crashes, bangs and shouts of lots of people.   
  
Duo and Wufei exchanged glances. "Mobile suits?" they both asked in unison.   
  
Suddenly a deafening roar rent the air and the ground shook. Duo fell off the bed. In other circumstances, Wufei would have found this unbelievably amusing, but this was serious. As the roaring and earth tremors died away Duo climbed to his feet.  
  
"Hang on here, Wufei," Duo said, heading for the door. "I'll go check it out."  
  
"No, Maxwell!" Wufei said, but he was gone. Wufei listened carefully. He could still hear all the noises from outside. Yes, there were definitely mobile suits out there, and people, but how many and for what purpose he could not determine.  
  
Presently, Duo's braided head popped around the door again.  
  
"It's OZ, Wu-man," he said with a serious statement. "They've got like three dozen soldiers with them and three mobile suits."  
  
"Shit!" Wufei cursed, sitting up. "But what was that huge roaring noise and shake?"  
  
Duo bit his lip. "The noise and commotion of the suits landing so close outside the cave has made half of the whole bloody roof come crashing in."  
  
"Nataku!?" Wufei shouted in a sudden fear.  
  
"Relax, pal," said Duo, coming forward into the room. "It's fine. But we can't get out the door. But then again, they can't get in either."  
  
Wufei took Duo's offered hand and hauled himself to his feet, wincing. "What are you planning to do, Maxwell?" he asked dubiously.  
  
"We'll have to climb up the rubble of the landslide, out the hole in the roof and then scoot down into the forest, pretty sharpish like before they cotton on." Duo paused as he helped Wufei down the corridor. "You think you can do it?"  
  
"Hai," Wufei said with certainty. "Let's just go, quickly."  
  
Duo nodded. They reached the door into the cave. Wufei could see what Duo meant. One entire half of the cave roof had caved in, leaving a landslide of rocks and debris which, luckily, piled right up to the new opening in the ceiling. Wufei could see Shenlong standing stoically besides the mess and seemed to be frowning disapprovingly.   
  
"Don't Worry, Wufei," Duo said, guessing the Chinese pilot's thoughts. "You put all the security and anti-intruder devices to full power. No one's gonna get in Nataku without frying to a crisp."  
  
Wufei nodded, knowing it was true. He also knew another reason why Nataku would be safe: these were local troops from the facility, again. They were after Duo, not the Gundams. He could hear them shouting and bustling outside. A rhythmic thumping had started up as the mobile suits endeavored to break the metal door down. But, what they didn't know was that on this side a pile of rocks and rubble had piled up behind the door. They only way they were going to get in was with a very large bomb. It belatedly occurred to Wufei that they just might have a very large bomb.  
  
"C'mon, Maxwell, we gotta get out of here!"  
  
Duo nodded in response and they both clambered over bits of fallen cave to get to the bottom of the slide. Wufei looked up. Small stones and sometimes large bounced at regular intervals down the unstable-looking pile. There was still dust in the air from the cave-in. The pile of rubble was strewn with tree roots and sticks that had fallen in from the forest above the cave when the thing had come crashing in. The whole thing looked about as stable as Heero when Relena Peacecraft was in the vicinity.  
  
But climb it they must and climb it they did. The sounds from outside were getting more and more urgent. Duo was just ahead, but frequently paused to make sure Wufei was ok or if he needed any help. There was one near miss when Duo put his foot on a boulder only to have it slide away from under him. He slipped and slid down. Wufei managed to grab his arms as he slid past. They continued on.  
  
Finally, with heaving chests and bloody bruises they hauled themselves out through the hole in the ceiling. The sudden daylight made them both blink. They crawled away from the hole that lay black and deep behind them. They crawled up to the edge of a small rise to look down. From there they could see the front entrance to the cave. Sure enough, there were two mobile suits stood in the clearing with a third ramming the door futilely.   
  
As Wufei and Duo regained their breath it occurred to the OZ soldiers (of which there were about three dozen, as Duo smugly remembered he had predicted) that this was not getting them anywhere fast. Captains began barking orders to the rest of the soldiers and they started moving about. Wufei had not been able to hear what the orders had been, but he could have sworn he heard the words "very" and "big" and "bomb" in the same sentence.  
  
Duo and Wufei exchanged a single glance and clambered to their feet. They dodged between the trees and ran down the rise. They were soon on level ground right on the edge of the clearing.   
  
A shoat rent the air and Wufei and Duo looked up to see one of the soldiers pointing in their direction.  
  
"Kuso!" cursed Duo. "They've spotted us. C'mon, Wu!"  
  
They took to their heels. They sprinted off into the forest as fast as they could. They could hear the soldiers yelling and shouting not far behind them. The ground was difficult and they both stumbled more than once on the uneven path.  
  
Wufei was in agony. His wound throbbed and the pain was like a knife continually stabbing him in the leg with every step he took. He soon fell behind Duo.  
  
Duo stopped and looked around. Wufei was far behind him. The running soldiers were not. Duo ran back to his comrade.  
  
"Stop, Wufei," Duo said seriously. "You can't run anymore with your leg like that."  
  
"Baka!" Wufei cursed. "Don't stop, they'll catch us!"  
  
"Quick," Duo insisted. "I've got an idea. C'mon, up a tree with you, Wu-man!"  
  
"You're mad!" But there was no time to argue. Duo and Wufei rushed to the closest tree. Duo went up first then gave Wufei a hand. His injured leg was protesting loudly to every movement. They scrambled up into the highest branches and tried to get their breath back.   
  
Duo leaned out and peered down through the leaves to the forest floor. He could hear them coming and then five soldiers skidded into view.  
  
"Halt!" one of them cried, right below their tree. "It's around here somewhere."  
  
Duo frowned in confusion. It was not just coincidence that had led them to stop right under their hiding place. Duo looked harder. One of them was holding some sort of hand-held computer. The man put to work the other soldiers searching the nearby undergrowth.  
  
Duo and Wufei looked up and met each other's eyes gravely.   
  
"Wufei," Duo whispered. "They don't know you're here. It's me they're after, ne?"  
  
Wufei shook his head, "Duo, no."  
  
Duo nodded. "They won't look for you if I lead them away. You can get away."  
  
"Duo, don't. You'll never make it."  
  
"Cha!" Duo scoffed. "Me? The infamous Shinigami? I can out run a few corn-fed Oz soldiers!"  
  
"Duo, no!" Wufei said urgently. "And that's my final word!"  
  
Duo shrugged. "Well it's gonna be a lot quieter then, if that was your last ever word."  
  
"Duo, you know that's not what I…Duo!"  
  
Duo clambered down the tree.  
  
TBC real soon 


	9. Chapter 8

Duo clambered down the tree. He paused on the bottom branch, eyeing the soldiers right underneath him. They were muttering something amongst them. The one with the computer spoke, "I don't understand it. We're right on top of it…"   
  
"Well, where is it then?" asked another irate soldier.  
  
While they were distracted, Duo leapt off the branch. He landed, knees bent, in front of them before straightening up and sprinting off as fast as his lithe body would allow him.  
  
A chorus of curses and shouts rang out behind him and the soldiers gave chase.  
  
"There it goes! Don't let it get away!"  
  
What's with all this 'it' business? he wondered. I'm a 'him', not an 'it'.  
  
But he gave over all his concentration to running. He was able to gain a decent lead easily. He sprinted down the forest paths.   
  
It wasn't until it was too late that he realised he had run a large loop in the forest paths and was now coming back up on the clearing where the rest of the Oz soldiers were waiting. But he couldn't stop or turn back…  
  
Wufei limped back the quick way to the clearing. An almighty explosion filled the air as he reached it. He flung his arms up in front of his face to try and hold off the shrapnel. The sound of battle tore the air apart. Wing, Heavyarms and Sandrock had returned from their mission. The extremely surprised Oz soldiers were being wiped out easily. Two of the three MS were already in pieces on the forest floor. Wufei looked around. He couldn't see Duo anywhere. No, wait…over there!  
  
Duo had skidded to a halt on the edge of the clearing when the first explosion came. He too had flung up his arms to protect his face. He saw the battle unfolding in the clearing in less than a second before he was seized from behind by two of the soldiers. Then he was on the ground with the wind completely knocked out of him. There was someone kneeling on his back and the muzzle of a gun was pressed against the back of his neck.  
  
"You little brat!" one of the soldiers cursed. "Don't you even dare breathe out of turn or, so help me, I'll bloody well make you regret it."  
  
"Nice to meet you too," Duo mumbled to the vexed soldier.   
  
He was hauled to his feet roughly. The soldiers endeavored to keep a hold of him, but he struggled violently. He broke their grip for a moment and tried to run, but they grabbed a hold of his braid.  
  
"Itai!" Duo shouted. They got a better hold of him by his arms. He still tried to fight them off.  
  
"Keep a tight hold of it!" one of the other soldiers said.  
  
They started to drag him away down the path to an armored jeep parked some way away.  
  
Heero dispatched of the last mobile suit with much satisfaction. He had been surprised and concerned to return to a full Oz platoon waiting outside his front door, so to speak. But they were no match for the Gundam pilots.   
  
The smoke started to clear and something caught his attention on the view screen. It was Wufei, limping out onto the battlefield, dirty and looking beaten about, but with a look of fierce determination on his face as he looked up at Wing.  
  
"Yuy!" he cried. "Quick, they've got Duo! They're dragging him off into the forest!"  
  
It only took a split second for the Perfect Soldier's mind to assimilate the information. It was his heart, however, that told him to leap into action. He opened the cockpit door and jumped to the ground. He ran off in the direction Wufei indicated.  
  
"Let me go you sons of bitches!" Duo cried, once more making a valiant effort to break away from the grip of the two soldiers. He could no longer see the clearing. He half-suspected that this would be the end of him. But they want me alive…why?  
  
"One more peep out of you, laboratory screw-up, and you'll be on the business end of this gun butt," one of the soldiers warned whilst hoisting Duo along.   
  
Suddenly, the grip on Duo's left arm disappeared as one of the soldiers dropped to the ground, dead. Duo and his captor turned around.  
  
"Let him go." Heero did not need to shout for his words to be registered.  
  
The soldier was strong and tall. He clamped his arm around Duo's waist and held him tight and Duo could not struggle. He pressed the muzzle of his pistol to Duo's neck.  
  
Duo barely registered the crushing grip about his abdomen or the cold metal pressed against his throat. Heero had come after him…not Quatre, not Trowa, not Wufei, not a combination. Heero…  
  
"Keep back, kid," the soldier said solemnly. "I'm serious."  
  
Duo noticed that the muzzle was shaking slightly against his skin. The man was scared. He was all by himself and at that present moment in time a very solemn looking young Japanese man was aiming a gun with deadly precision at his head. All he had to do was keep a tight hold of the boy in his grasp and he'd be ok.  
  
"I repeat," Heero said. "Let him go. Now."  
  
Heero met Duo's eyes. The moment in time seemed to freeze. Something passed between them. Duo was unable to bring himself to speak, but words were not needed. But then doubt overshadowed Heero's eyes. Duo glanced away.  
  
"It's not getting away from me, kid," the soldier said. "Just let us go and I won't damage it."  
  
Duo slowly eased his arm forward, then thrust his elbow back sharply into the man's stomach. The man gasped and his grip loosened. Duo broke the grip and ran to Heero. The Japanese boy took the American's hand and pulled him behind his back protectively. He stood in between the longhaired pilot and his would-be kidnapper. Duo relished in the feel of Heero's hand clutching his protectively.   
  
He peered over Heero's shoulder. The man was just recovering his breath and straightening up. Heero still held his gun firmly.  
  
"Now git," Heero said, calmly. "Quickly, before I change my mind."  
  
The soldier complied. He was soon out of sight.  
  
Heero turned to face Duo. They were standing close together. Was that relief that Duo saw in those cobalt depths?  
  
"Duo? Daijoobu desu ka?" he asked, almost tenderly. He still had a strong grip on Duo's fingers.  
  
"Hai," Duo said softly, gazing into Heero's eyes.  
  
Heero pulled the other boy into a possessive and fairly emotional embrace. Duo hugged him back. Tears came to his eyes. He forgot about Relena, he forgot about all the mysteries that had been tearing him apart. Heero cared, he really cared.  
  
"I'm glad you're safe," the words came from Heero's lips awkwardly, but the fact that they came at all was more than enough for Duo.  
  
"Arigatou, Heero," Duo mumbled softly. "For saving me."  
  
Heero pulled away and nodded. He did not smile, but his face had softened in an almost imperceptible way. He did not let go of Duo's hand as they walked back to the clearing together.  
When they got back to the clearing, the other three were all standing there, clustered around something. As Heero and Duo got closer Duo saw it was the small computer one of the soldiers had been holding.  
  
"Hey look," said Quatre pointing to the screen. "It's moving."  
  
"It's moving straight towards us," observed Trowa.  
  
"Hey, what's that?" asked Duo walking up to them.  
  
They all looked up from the screen and straight at Duo.  
  
"What?" he asked, slightly concerned.  
  
Heero looked at the computer. "A tracking device?" He looked up at Duo. "Duo, move around a bit."  
  
"Nani?"  
  
"Just do it,"  
  
Duo, feeling slightly foolish, walked up and down in total bewilderment.  
  
"It is him, look," said Wufei. He was pointing at a dot on the screen that moved in unison with Duo. "This is how they were able to find him so quickly. They've stuck a homing device in him somewhere."  
  
"They what?!" Duo squeaked. "Where is it? Where have they put it?" he patted his chest, his legs, fiddled with his hair.  
  
Heero took the computer and walked up to Duo with it. "Hold still." Duo complied. He moved the computer around a bit, seeing how the coloured dot on the screen moved in relation to Duo. The others came forward to watch. "It's in your hand, Duo," Heero stated.  
  
Duo frowned and lifted his hand up to inspect it. He ran his fingers over the back of it. "Yes, here it is," Duo could feel a small bump in the skin on the back of his hand. "Ewww, that is just so gross! They've stuck a computer chip in the back of my hand!"  
  
"We've gotta get it out," said Quatre. "They may have more tracking devices."  
  
Heero got out his penknife.  
  
"Oh no you don't Yuy!" Duo said backing off. "You're not coming anywhere near me with that thing!"  
  
"Duo, hold still,"  
  
"It's almost dark," Duo protested. "You won't be able to see what you're doing! Can we wait until morning…preferably when I'm within dashing distance of a large supply off sedatives."  
  
"Duo," Heero insisted. "They'll find us again by morning."  
  
"You killed them all!" Duo pointed out. "There's no one left from the base to come after me."  
  
"Other ozzies might have similar devices that you might show up on," Wufei observed. Duo could almost swear Wufei was enjoying this.  
  
Heero made a grab at Duo's hand while he was distracted. Duo started to protest but caught Heero's gaze. He was solemn if not slightly scared. "Duo, I don't want to hurt you," he said softly. "I really don't want to cause you pain, but what I want even less is for them to be able to take you back…now look in the other direction."  
  
Duo paused for a second. He stopped trying to pull his hand away. He screwed up his courage, clenched his eyes and teeth and looked away. Heero momentarily marveled at the smoothness of Duo's hand. He ran his fingers over it to find where the chip was. It would be easy enough to get out, but it was going to hurt.  
  
Duo bit down a cry of pain as he felt the penknife cut him. A shooting pain screamed through his hand and up his arm and he flinched involuntarily. Red-hot fire seemed to have exploded in the veins in his hand.  
  
"It's out," he heard Heero say.   
  
Duo looked back. Heero still had a hold of his now bleeding hand and was tenderly wrapping the small wound in bandage.  
  
"Are you alright?" Heero asked.  
  
Duo managed a weak smile. "Yes," he said. "Everything is fine." 


	10. Chapter 9

All of them agreed that it was time to move far away from that area and fast. Heero had sent a (minimised) report on the mission and the scientists also agreed that getting out of the area was the best option. Plus the fact that their safe house had actually caved in was a good reason to perhaps find somewhere more stable to stay.  
  
They traveled for the rest of that night getting as far away as possible in some stolen trucks with the gundams strapped on the back, concealed under tarpaulins. Since Duo didn't have a gundam, he rode with Heero. It was a warm and happy feeling that surrounded the cab of Heero's lorry. They did not talk much and Duo fell asleep quite soon, but nonetheless Heero felt it was the most pleasant journey he'd experienced in a long time.  
  
Several times he almost crashed into the back of Wufei's truck in front of him because he kept sneaking glances at the sleeping pilot beside him. The only problem was that a guillotine in his mind kept slamming off his desires.  
  
It's not Duo…  
  
Then why did it feel so right? He was so mixed up inside that it was tearing him apart. He knew he loved the boy sitting next to him, but he doubted himself as to why: was it because it was Duo? Or because it was someone who was like Duo?  
  
Heero could never remember feeling this vulnerable ever before. He had been trained to cope with blood, death, tyranny, and war…but not love. He didn't even believe it had existed…up until now.  
  
He growled and scowled heavily out the windscreen, angry at feeling vulnerable, angry at being confused and angry at being so upset. He forced himself not to look at the sleeping pilot besides him for the rest of the journey. He was looking for someone to blame for this…he decided it was the clone's entire fault.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Duo was woken with a start by the sound of the cab door slamming. He looked around. They had stopped driving, having arrived at the next safe house. Duo frowned, hurt. Heero had stormed out of the cab without even telling him they had arrived.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Heero worked steadfastly on Wing. It was the next day. Heero had managed to avoid the company of the clone ever since they had arrived. He did not like to dwell on the reasons why he was acting so cold. He did not like to admit his weaknesses, especially not when he suspected they were betraying Duo…the real Duo, the one that had given his life and now lay in the earth in the Sanq Kingdom. Wing had never been in such good shape. Heero had never had a reason to work so much on it all at once.   
  
He heard the door to the hanger open and shut and light footsteps tap across the floor. His grip on his wrench tightened as he heard someone climbing the ladder up to the platform behind him.  
  
"Heero?" It was Duo. His voice was quiet, nervous, confused.  
  
Heero didn't reply or turn around. He kept working on an exposed circuitry panel.  
  
"Heero, could I talk to you for a second?"  
  
"Hn." Why was it hurting him so much to be cruel to the clone?  
  
He heard Duo take a breath as he sat down on the platform at Heero's back. "Urm, you see…it's just…oh, God, why does this have to be so hard?"  
  
Heero didn't reply but he stopped working.  
  
"Listen Heero," Duo's voice was very careful, but it was impossible not to hear the hope behind the words. "I just want to know where we stand. A long time ago, just before I was captured, I told you…something," he paused to find the words. "Do you remember what I told you, Heero?"  
  
"Hai," Heero stated. I love you…  
  
Duo took another scared, shuddering breath. "Well…I just wanna know…"  
  
Heero was silent.  
  
"Goddamn it Heero!" Duo shouted. "Will you just speak to me for Christ's sake! I simply don't know what to make of it. When you first saw me, you kissed me, then you tried to kill me. Then you were really kind and then you run off to Relena…"  
  
This momentarily puzzled Heero…  
  
"Then…you saved my life," Duo's voice was choked with emotion. Heero felt his iron resolve rusting, melting, leaving him exposed, leaving his tender soul open to be torn by Duo's pain.  
  
"I just want to know Heero…please tell me…you know how I feel…"  
  
Heero turned around. There were tears brimming in those beautiful amethyst eyes, that tender face that he pictured so many times in his dreams was there before him, sad, confused, hoping for some kind of acknowledgement. Heero had the second chance that no one should ever get.   
  
Carpe diem.  
  
Heero could no longer control what he was doing. He was just going through motions of what he knew was right. He leant forward and his eyes slid shut. He captured Duo's lips in a tender kiss that seemed to light up the world inside his head. Bright channels were scoured to his heart and his entire soul burst alight with joy and love, things that were strangers to him but strangers that he welcomed and embraced.  
  
Duo responded and Heero could feel the American's feelings reciprocating. Slender, warm arms encircled his neck and he felt Duo's own spirit reach out to pull him in. He was more than willing to go.  
  
Fierce lightening stabbed down Heero's spine and he felt cold steel thrust itself through his revelation. He broke away violently from Duo. What am I doing!  
  
"I'm sorry…Duo," Heero said, feeling the conflicting forces of fire and ice battle within him. "I can't…"  
  
It felt more painful than a bullet to see that look on Duo's face. Heero had never seen the look someone has on their face when their heart is breaking. There were crystalline tears raising once again in Duo's eyes but he bit his lip so hard it must have been painful to try and keep the tears from escaping. Heero felt the blood freeze in his veins. He never wanted to see that look on Duo's face. The fact that it was his own fault was making it even worse.  
  
"Ok," Duo's voice was choked. "That's ok, Heero…"  
  
Duo climbed down the ladder.  
  
Heero wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his face, biting his own lip until the physical pain overrode the pain in his heart. He could still taste Duo on his lips and it felt so right. But Heero would not let himself act so weakly.   
  
He heard Duo's footsteps running across the hanger floor and then the door slammed shut.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Wufei walked down the corridor to the hanger, searching for Heero. He needed to talk to him about some work they had to do next day.  
  
He was interrupted in his thoughts by Duo bursting out of the hanger door at a run. He sprinted straight past Wufei without so much as a glance. There were tears coursing down his face. He ran down the corridor and Wufei heard a bedroom door slam and then the sound of stifled sobbing.   
  
"Oh no…" He could guess what had happened.   
  
It just was not fair. Why were they always thrown into these impossibly painful situations?  
  
He turned back and continued into the hanger.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Heero did not hear Wufei enter. The sound of his own anguish screaming in his ears dulled all his senses. Why is this happening to me? Why am I always forced to hurt those I care for the most?  
  
"Heero?"  
  
Heero whipped his head up from his arms to see Wufei standing on the platform. He had a grim look on his face.   
  
"What?" Heero asked sourly. He was in no mood for a lecture on justice…  
  
"Duo just passed me in the corridor," Wufei stated.  
  
Heero just looked at him.  
  
Wufei sighed and dropped his tough act. "Listen to me Heero, why do keep torturing yourself like this?"  
  
"It's none of your business, Wufei," Heero growled.  
  
To Heero's annoyance Wufei was not ruffled. "Heero, I don't understand. You love him don't you?"  
  
"Hn," Heero looked away.  
  
"And he loves you. Do you know how many people get to experience that kind of thing?" Wufei seemed to know a lot about this.  
  
"It's not Duo, Chang," Heero said. "No matter what I think about it or how I'd like it to be different, I know that Duo is dead. We all agreed that we would not try and replace him."  
  
"Oh, give me a break Heero Yuy!" Wufei exclaimed. "Breaking a boy's heart to such an extent that he is lying, sobbing, in his room, feeling more alone than he ever has before…we never agreed that we'd do anything like that."  
  
Heero looked away. "You don't understand."  
  
"No, you're right. I don't understand. I don't understand why you are willing to ruin this chance. Look, it is Duo. I don't care what we agreed to or what you, or anyone else, think. That is Duo down there. He has all the same characteristics, the same personality, memories, and desires…everything. Therefore, right now, as far as he's concerned, he has been turned away by someone he loves and whom he thought loved him back." Wufei paused and fumbled over the next few words. "It hurts me to see him so sad. I care for him…a lot."   
  
Heero looked back, stunned. Wufei? Wufei wanted Duo?  
  
"Yes, I admit it, ok," Heero could never remember seeing Wufei so emotional. "I feel very strongly for him and I don't care if you know now." Wufei's face once more put on his hard mask as if daring Heero to challenge him.  
  
"If you don't take this chance this you've been given, then I will," Wufei warned. He was deadly serious. "The only reason I haven't up until now is because I know that what he would have with you would be far more special than anything he could have with me. It would have far more meaning…for both of you."  
  
Wufei held Heero's gaze for a moment. Heero didn't know what to feel. Anger? Jealousy? Fear? It was so incredale. It never really occurred to him that Wufei could feel for anyone. He was so stoic and quiet. It's like looking in a mirror…  
  
Wufei turned and left without another word, his warning still hanging in the air.  
  
Heero sat on the cold metal of the platform. He felt very small in the centre of the huge hanger. After a minute, he got to his feet and climbed down the ladder. He left the hanger and walked down the corridor, determination in every step. Reaching Duo's bedroom, he went in without knocking. Duo was lying on his bed with his face buried in the pillow. He turned over onto his back as he heard someone enter.  
  
"Heero?" He looked confused. His eyes were red and his cheeks were wet from weeping. Heero registered for a moment that he had hurt him more than he had ever wished to and he swore he would never do it again.  
  
He didn't hesitate. He crawled up onto the bed until he was positioned above the very stunned Duo. Leaning down, he once more captured Duo's mouth in a possessive and fiercely passionate kiss. Ai shiteru Duo, he thought. I always have done, I always will.  
  
Duo stopped crying. Heero tried to kiss away the pain that he'd caused.   
  
"Gomen Duo," he whispered between kisses. "Gomen nasi. Please don't push me away. I need you."  
  
"Heero," Duo simply whispered back. As soon as Heero heard his name whispered like that by Duo, he knew that everything either of them had ever dreamed of was right here with them now.  
  
After a minute of Heero's ministrations, Duo responded, first carefully as if he were still afraid Heero would pull away again. But, of course, he didn't. Duo's kisses became more urgent. He ran his hands through Heero's hair and pulled him closer.  
  
Heero didn't look back. All his doubts had vanished. He had him, he had Duo, here, in his arms, where he belonged. Everything was as it should be and Heero felt more complete and freer than he had ever done before in his life. He could not think how he had lived so long without this.  
  
He felt Duo pulling him in again, heart, body and soul, and this time he fell freely and didn't care that there was no going back. This was what he had been fighting for, though he only realised it then. This was what he lived for, this was what he wept for when he thought he'd lost it forever. And now he had it and he never intended to let it go again.  
  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Heero woke slowly next morning as if drifting to the surface of some rose-coloured lake. Everything was warm and everything was complete. He opened his eyes. He was in Duo's bedroom, in Duo's bed, in Duo's arms. Light filtered in from around the edge of the blind and flung its thin rays across the bed covers.  
  
Duo looked like an angel that had fallen from heaven. His face was smooth and peaceful in its slumber, dark eyelashes resting on pale cheeks, untamed bangs resting across his face. Heero could feel Duo's arms wrapped around his body and his long, lithe frame curled up against his side. His own arm was wrapped around the longhaired boy, holding him close as he slept.  
  
The previous night filtered back to him with a wave of soft pleasure. It was a mixture now, a mixture of soft moans, secret touches, loving embraces and precious, passion-fuelled utterances. But Heero remembered enjoying every glorious second of it. And yet the greatest pleasure of all seemed to be waking up and find Duo still there, his arms wrapped tenderly about him.  
  
Heero was loathe to disturb his sleeping lover, but he could not help but reach out to brush tangled tresses out of his angelic face and to trace a finger down the delicate skin, just to reassure himself that it was real and not some fanciful dream. He felt Duo stir and tighten his grip on him in a sleepy embrace. He leant his face into Heero's palm and his eyes fluttered open. For a moment they just lay there gazing on each other, both too happy to speak.  
  
"Hi Heero," Duo mumbled in a sleep-slurred voice. "Fancy meeting you here."  
  
"Good morning Duo," Heero smiled.  
  
"I've wanted for so long to be able to wake up like this," Duo said softly. He snuggled tighter up to Heero under the covers. Heero just looked at him, his hard eyes unbelievably soft.  
  
Duo rolled himself so he was lying on top of Heero, their faces inches apart. He brushed his russet and sleep-tousled hair tenderly whilst gazing into his eyes. His own hair fell like a silken curtain about them.  
  
"So long, Heero," Duo whispered wistfully.   
  
Heero wrapped an arm around him and placed his other hand on the back of his neck, pulling him gently down for another kiss. Sweet eternities of nothing but a simple touch; it had seemed impossible that they would ever be able to experience such a perfect pleasure. The passion and love behind the kiss was what had been stored for years between them. Now all the puzzle pieces linked together and a beautiful picture was created.  
  
They broke apart gently but the feeling did not leave them.   
  
"You scared me for a while, Heero," Duo admitted softly, nuzzling his lover's face. His breath as he spoke brushed against Heero's neck with a sweet, feathery softness. "I was just so uncertain. You're so complex, Heero. But I loved you for it. But because you are so complex it was impossible to figure out what you would want. I was so certain for a while that you would never want me."  
  
Heero wanted to intervene, but he wanted to listen to all what Duo had to say.  
  
Duo sighed. "When I came back, I thought I'd finally reached something in you. But I saw that you doubted something. I'm not going to ask you what that was, not yet. But it scared me. I thought I'd misread you once again. I thought I must have dreamed those words I heard you say just before I passed out."  
  
Heero eased Duo's face up so he could look into his eyes. "You'd been gone a long time," Heero said. "I knew what I felt, I just was not sure how to handle it."  
  
"I'm glad you decided to handle it this way," Duo smiled.  
  
"So am I," Heero replied.  
  
"It really wasn't a dream then?" Duo's face was so serene. It made Heero's heart glow.  
  
"No it wasn't a dream, Duo," Heero said.  
  
"And last night wasn't a dream either?"  
  
"Well, if it was a dream," Heero said, "It's a dream I'd gladly like to dream every night for the rest of my life."  
  
Duo smiled again.  
  
"And every morning," Heero carried on. "And sometimes maybe even right after lunch."  
  
Duo laughed and buried his face in Heero's neck. "It was that good for you, huh?"  
  
"Better," Heero eased himself over and moved Duo beneath him. He wanted to stay in contact with his lover constantly just to reassure himself that it was not some beautiful fantasy his mind had created. He kissed the soft skin under the boy's jaw and down his neck to his collarbone. Duo sighed with pleasure. Heero moved up again to catch the sigh with his lips. He did not realise that he had not gone to the Sanq Kingdom the previous evening. Neither did he realise that he had no intention of going that night either. 


	11. Chapter 10

"Has anyone seen Heero or Duo this morning?" asked Quatre as he sauntered into the living room of the safe house, chewing on a piece of toast. "It's not like Duo to miss breakfast and it's not like Heero to lie in."  
  
Wufei was reading the newspaper on the sofa. "I'm sure they'll both be down in a moment…together."  
  
Quatre exchanged a confused glance with Trowa, who was sitting at the desk with the laptop. "Why did you say it like that, Wufei?"  
  
Wufei threw him a meaningful glance over the top of his newspaper. "You mean you didn't hear them last night?"  
  
Quatre almost choked on his piece of toast. "By Allah!" he cried, once he'd got his lungs clear of toast. "They did it? They finally got it together?!"  
  
Wufei just raised an eyebrow and went back to his paper.  
  
Quatre was virtually skipping with joy. "I'm so happy for them," he chirped. "They are just so right for each other! And both of them have been through so much. Finally they can both have some support and security…" he paused in mid-skip. "But…what if they regret it this morning? They're both so…oh, I don't know…complicated. Especially Heero. He's never done anything like this before. What if they get scared and try to forget all about it?"  
  
"Oh, c'mon, Quatre!" Wufei said with exasperation, lowering his paper. "These two have had the ultimate restrained love for each other for, like, years! That sort of thing does not get sated by a quick roll in the hay." He calmed. "Don't worry, I think they'll be together for a long time."  
  
"Aren't you two forgetting something?" Trowa said. His face was grim.  
  
Before anyone could respond, Duo burst into the room like a braided whirlwind, dragging Heero behind him by the hand. "Good morning everyone!" he chirped. "And welcome to Duo's Breakfast News! Headlines today: Oz are crap, Relena Peacecraft is a loser and The Gundam Boys kick ass! But first! The weather forecast!"  
  
He bounded over to the window, finally letting go of Heero. He peered out onto the clear morning. "Today's weather will be sun, sun and more sun! God's in his heaven and all's right with the world!"   
  
There was a cloudburst and suddenly the land outside was drenched with icy sheets of gray rain.  
  
Duo turned around to the others and giggled bashfully. "Well, you get the picture. Hey, Q! Is that toast!"  
  
"Hey, that's mine!" protested Quatre as his toast was snatched from his hand.  
  
"Well, you can have it back if you want, but I don't think it'll be very appitising now," said Duo as he swallowed it whole.  
  
Quatre grumbled to himself and went to make more toast. Duo stretched and calmed down. Heero was now sitting on the sofa watching Duo with a soft, pleasant statement on his face that wasn't a smile, but wasn't his normal scowl. Duo bounced over to him and dropped himself into his lap, wrapping his arms around his neck.  
  
"Morning, Hee-chan!" he gave him a kiss on the cheek.  
  
Heero had his arms wrapped possessively around the slim waist. Duo, with a giggle buried his face in Heero's neck.  
  
"Duo," Wufei cried in frustration, crumpling up his paper. "Shut up! It's bad enough you kept me up all night. I already have a bad enough headache without you shouting the house down."  
  
"Oh, shut up, Wu-man," Duo said. "You're just miffed cos you're the only one not getting any."  
  
Wufei's paper gave a violent jerk.  
  
"Anyway, we can't have kept you up all night," Duo reasoned. "If you ask me, Quatre and Trowa are lookin' pretty baggy-eyed this morning. They don't look like they got much sleep. Too busy doing other things."   
  
Duo winked at Quatre who had just returned with more toast and immediately turned bright red.  
  
Heero bit down a laugh and Wufei looked like his nose was about to explode with a catastrophic nosebleed any second.  
  
"On a more important note," Trowa interrupted, his voice steely as ever. "The scientists have communicated."  
  
"What did they say?" asked Heero, peering over Duo's head as he snuggled it into Heero's shoulder.  
  
"They think it would be best for us to lay low for a while," Trowa explained as he scrolled down on the laptop. "Oz seemed to have quieted down now with these new peace talks and they feel that any interference from us, of any kind, could jeopardise the talks."  
  
"How long?" asked Wufei.  
  
Trowa looked up, something like a smile dancing in his emerald eyes. "A whole month."  
  
"Nani?" Quatre startled. He walked over behind his lover to peer at the screen. "That's brilliant! A whole month with no missions? Yes! A holiday!"  
  
"Except for this," Trowa said. "We've just gotta wipe all the files that were linked to that base we destroyed the other day. They're might be a few on the major Oz mainframe."  
  
"How are we supposed to do that?" asked Duo.  
  
"Well," Trowa said, looking up. "It should be easy enough. The files were for the base's research only, so no one will notice when they've gone because the only people who used them are dead. The only problem is, we have to be connected to Oz's mainframe to wipe them. We can't get onto the network from this laptop."  
  
"So what do we do?" asked Wufei, also getting up and walking over to look at the laptop. "Do they say how we're supposed to do it?"  
  
"Yes," Trowa said, pointing at something on the screen. "Not too far from here there is an Oz facility, disguised as a school. It's only a quiet little science facility really, nothing we need to worry about destroying, but they'll have computers there that'll be connected to the mainframe. Standard drill. We all arrange an appointment, pretending to be students interested in joining the school for next term. At some stage Heero and I sneak off from the group to find the computer room and do all the necessary nasty work while Wufei and Quatre keep the head teacher occupied. We get back before he notices we've been gone, say we'll get back to him about joining, then disappear and don't come back."  
  
"What about me?" asked Duo, raising his head from Heero's shoulder. "What do they say I should do?"  
  
There was a hesitation just long enough to be called suspicious.   
  
"You're not mentioned," Trowa said. "I suppose you're to stay here and guard the safe house."  
  
"Oh," Duo said, sounding disappointed. "Ok then."  
  
"When are we supposed to do that?" asked Heero.  
  
"They say it would be best to go next Friday," Trowa explained. "That way, if we do accidentally leave any traces of our hacking, they will obliterate themselves over the weekend and no one will find out we were ever there. All traces will be gone by Monday when the school opens up again for the week."  
  
"Sounds good to me," said Wufei.  
  
"So we've got a whole week," Duo said, slightly more cheerfully. "And then the rest of this month with nothing to do! We're gonna have to think of ways to entertain ourselves."  
  
Quatre and Trowa exchanged a sly glance as did Heero and Duo. Wufei looked from one pair of lovers to the other and back again. He threw his paper away, clutched his hair and ran out of the room, screaming, "I'm surrounded by nymphomaniacs!"   
  
The four lovers exchanged a glance and all, even Heero and Trowa, burst into laughter.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
The next couple of days passed without incident. Heero always remembered them as if through a golden haze. The war had eased off temporarily which meant no stressful missions, not killing, no conflict. Normally this would have left him detached, feeling he had no purpose, but with Duo everything fit into place and he was truly happy. Much to their satisfaction, they had plenty of time to spend together, whether they were talking, making love or just sitting quietly in each other's arms and listening to the sounds of the world around them. Heero realised that life didn't have to be all agony and tears.  
  
All of them played a number of drinking games each night to celebrate their short holiday, which they all regretted the following mornings, but none of them remembered having as much fun since before Duo had died. But even the catastrophic event that was Duo's death had dulled in everyone's minds. Hopes even raised amongst them that perhaps, just perhaps, the war would end as a result of these talks and at last they would all be free to follow their dreams…  
  
And so it was on the third night. Quatre had drawn the short straw to go with a grumpy Wufei to the store to fetch supplies. Even though it was quiet enough at the moment, they did not relax enough to let any of them go anywhere alone. And Wufei was pretty miserable company whilst his leg was healing.  
  
The three remaining pilots were sitting, enjoying the simple pleasure of watching the telly, a pastime that Trowa and Heero had never really learned to enjoy in the past. Trowa was on the sofa, spread out along its length, Heero was in an armchair and Duo was in his lap.   
  
The two lovers were now virtually inseparable. It was like they were joined at the hip. Heero never really displayed much emotion in front of anyone, but he always made sure that Duo was sitting in his lap or at his side or somewhere where he could hold him some way. Even the vague and distant Trowa thought it was touching. As he glanced at them, both pleasant faces sleepy in the eerie glow of the television set, together and, finally, happy, he felt a longing for Quatre. A single thought of clones did not even enter Trowa's logical mind.  
  
Duo was watching the news broadcast wistfully. There were updates on the peace talks, but they were also showing footage from battle scenes from earlier in the war.  
  
"Hey Heero," Duo asked softly, not lifting his head from his koi's shoulder. "When do I get my new gundam and start fighting again?"  
  
Oh no…Trowa thought. He slid his glance away from the TV to watch Heero's reaction. His face was slightly stonier now than it had been.  
  
"I don't know, Duo," he said simply.  
  
Duo frowned slightly. "Well, the scientists are sure taking their sweet time about it," he said. "I would have thought I'd be inundated with missions once they heard I was back."  
  
Trowa and Heero were silent.  
  
"They do know I'm back, right?" Duo raised his head off Heero's shoulder too look in his face.  
  
"Of course," Heero replied, not meeting Duo's eyes. "The scientists aren't known for their predictability, Duo. And with these new talks there is no need for too many missions." Trowa found it a very interesting experience to see the way Heero looked at Duo then. "Don't worry, Duo. Everything's fine."  
  
Duo smiled and rested his head down again. Heero held him closer and rested his chin on the top of Duo's head. He looked at Trowa with an unreadable look in his eyes. Worry? Fear?  
  
Trowa turned his attention back to the television. There was a report on a ceremony being held for all those that had fallen in a battle a week before. It was very depressing. The camera panned across a graveyard full of new gravestones arranged at painfully regular intervals.  
  
"We still don't know the final casualty toll," the reporter was saying. "But we do know that it outnumbers any war in the history of the world. This is Miranda Richardson reporting from – "  
  
Duo clicked off the telly. "Man, I've seen enough of that for two lifetimes."  
  
Heero's face looked shocked for some reason. Trowa frowned. "Heero? Are you ok?"  
  
Duo raised his head again. "Heero?"  
  
"I've gotta go," he said. "I can't believe I didn't…"  
  
Duo got up off Heero to let him stand. "Heero, where have you gotta go? Tell me what's wrong, you're scaring me…"  
  
Those graves…the Sanq Kingdom, Trowa realised. He's forgotten to go the last few nights…  
  
Heero looked at his lover. "I won't be long," he said. He placed a kiss on his cheek then left.   
  
Duo looked at Trowa. "What was all that about?"  
  
Trowa shrugged calmly. "I guess sometimes he just needs to be alone."  
  
"But he should never need to be alone," Duo mumbled sadly, gazing the way Heero had left. "Not now." Duo looked up and met Trowa's gaze for a moment. He turned and ran upstairs. Trowa didn't see him again for the rest of the evening.  
  
Why won't they tell me? Duo thought as he lay on his bed, hugging the pillow close to him. What happened while I was away?   
  
It was hours before Heero returned to kiss away his pain.  
  
TBC 


	12. Chapter 11

The next day, things seemed to have lightened up. They all went to the lake for the day. It was not the sort of thing they usually did and Wufei, Trowa and Heero had to be dragged, tooth and nail. Duo and Quatre had the time of their lives. It was too cold to swim, but that didn't stop Duo trying to kick water all over Quatre. Quatre retaliated but missed and doused Heero. It was only a matter of time before everyone was involved. It would have been an odd sight for anyone who had seen news reports on the infamous gundam terrorists to see them playing around at a lakeside, kicking water at each other, laughing and smiling. It was easy to forget that they were all just children.  
  
They were all soaked and shivering as they returned to the safe house, but happy. Except for Wufei. He refused to see the funny side. He got the hot shower first.  
  
Despite the fact that some refused to be amused by the day's events, that evening was peaceful and quiet. Trowa and Quatre were practicing a duet in the living room. The sweet music they played lilted and swayed with the good mood. Wufei was reading a book in Chinese with a contented, knowledgeable statement on his oriental face. Heero and Duo, as always, were sitting together. They were on the sofa. Heero was listening to the music with much pleasure. He was contented, and finding how much he enjoyed the simple pleasure of being content. Duo was dozing under his arm.  
  
"Heero?" Duo suddenly said softly.  
  
"Um?" Heero responded drowsily.  
  
"Why am I dead?"  
  
The air was shattered by Quatre's violin giving forth an unearthly screech as his bow slipped, Trowa almost choked on his flute and Wufei tore the page he was turning almost completely in half. To his credit, the only physical reaction Heero had was to snap his eyes wide open.  
  
"What do you mean?" he asked, an edge in his voice.  
  
Everyone had fallen into a shocked silence. They all felt as if an icy bomb had crashed through the roof. Now they all waited to see if it would explode.  
  
Duo sighed and sat up, pulling out of Heero's embrace. He did not seem to notice that the rest of the room had fallen deathly quiet.  
  
"Don't be mad at me," he said carefully. "But after you left last night…I sorta followed you…"  
  
There was a pause and you could have dug bits of the tension out of the air with a spoon.  
  
"Well, I was just so scared, Heero," he tried to explain, mistaking the silence for malice. "It's not that I didn't trust you, it's just…I don't know," he looked at the floor and twisted his fingers. "But I was so afraid you were going to see Relena…" Heero frowned. Why would anyone want to go and see Relena? "But you got there," Duo continued. "And you went to that graveyard. After you left I went to see what grave you were sitting at…"  
  
The other three pilots exchanged glances. How much had he figured out?  
  
"I managed to get back before you and I did a little research using the laptop," Duo could not bring himself to meet Heero's piercing stare. "There are loads of reports and things about me dying seven months ago. The Oz files are full of it. There were newspaper articles and everything."  
  
He looked up at Heero's face with a pitying look in his eyes. He took Heero's hand. Heero was frozen to the spot. He saw Duo sitting before him but he was blurring around the edges. Was he going to lose this special feeling so soon after finding it?   
  
"Why didn't you guys tell me you thought I was dead?" Duo asked them all, but gazed into Heero's eyes.  
  
Heero felt a guilty relief along with the others. But none of them could think of anything to say. All that mattered was that he hadn't figured out the whole truth…yet.   
  
"It explains so much," Duo continued. Heero's face was blank. "It's alright, I understand," he said, not really knowing what to make of the silence. "I thought something weird had happened." He got up, still holding onto Heero's hands. "I don't know why you never thought to tell me though." He kissed Heero on the cheek and went to go to the kitchen.  
  
"I'm gonna make some coffee," they heard his voice from the kitchen. "Anyone want some?"  
  
"Yes please," said Quatre in a weak voice.  
  
"And me," said Trowa, equally shaken.  
  
"Me too," said Heero.  
  
"Me three," croaked Wufei.  
  
"Ok," Duo called. "How do you all want it?"  
  
"Black!" all said in unison.  
  
We can't carry on lying…Quatre laid down his violin with shaking hands, no longer in the mood for music.  
  
Later that evening, Heero stood in his bedroom staring out at the night. The cold rain lashed against the window as if it were trying to get through to soak him with its misery. Heero had an awful sinking feeling in his stomach. That afternoon Duo had come closer than ever to finding out the truth…he knew it couldn't be long until the clone discovered everything else and he didn't know what would happen. His entire life that had so recently been built up around him was going to be torn away after only a few days. He couldn't bare the certainty.  
  
He felt warm arms encircle him from behind, wrapping around his chest and hugging him close. He almost felt tears come to his eyes. You're mine…he inwardly begged. Please, always be mine, no matter what happens. I can't go on without knowing you'll be with me forever.  
  
Duo rested his head on Heero's shoulder and nuzzled his neck playfully. "Had a nice day, Hee-chan?"  
  
Heero turned in Duo's embrace and gazed upon him for a while. He still could not believe that he had been so lucky as to get Duo back, but was he now going to be torn away again?  
  
No! Heero thought with certainty as he leant forward and kissed Duo ravenously. No! I won't let him leave me again.  
  
Duo murmured with pleasure softly at the back of his throat and wrapped his arms around his lover's neck. Heero eased Duo backward towards the bed and lay him gently down upon it. He climbed on top and once more claimed Duo's mouth in a fiery kiss. He kissed the tender throat, feeling it so warm, smooth and real beneath him. He was real, he was right here. But for how much longer?  
  
He buried his face in Duo's neck and just lay there, holding him, breathing his clean scent. For once in my life, I won't let my happiness be ripped away from me.  
  
"Hee-chan?" Duo's voice was soft. "Is something the matter?"  
  
Heero raised his face so he could look directly into Duo's violet eyes. "Duo, promise me you'll never leave me."  
  
"What?" Duo asked, slight confusion twisting his brow.  
  
"Promise me, Duo!" Heero pleaded. "Promise me that whatever happens you won't leave me again."  
  
"I promise, Heero," Duo tenderly stroked Heero's face. "I've wanted you for so long, I'm not going to let you slip away. I'm yours, forever."  
  
Those words eased the cold pain inside the Japanese boy. Then hot desire and passion washed away the rest. Temporarily.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
And so all rolled lazily and happily along until Friday. Trowa, Quatre Wufei and Heero left at midday, all eagerly expecting an easy mission with the aftermath of an entire month of relaxation. Something had changed in all of them since the appearance of the clone that made them easily forget painful things. None of them thought of the evening a few nights ago when all had been terrified that the clone might have found out that they had been lying to him.  
  
Duo waved from a window of the safe house until their stolen truck was out of sight. He still did not understand why he was not part of the mission. Sure, he was not as good as hacking as Heero, but he was sure as hell on par with Trowa.  
  
He turned away from the window and stared around the empty living room. He wrapped his arms around him. The feeling of loneliness that seemed to creep up on him quite a lot lately stole over him once again. He didn't want to distrust his friends…but he just suspected that there was something not quite right here.  
  
The telly offered no temptation. He contemplated having a go with Quatre's violin, but decided he wasn't in the mood. I'm all by myself…  
  
How about getting drunk? Nah, it was barely twelve thirty. He'd save that for later.  
  
His eyes landed on Heero's laptop. 


	13. Chapter 12

The others arrived back after their mission. It had gone completely without hitch. They all entered through the front door and went to the living room, discussing the mission between them. They didn't notie the open laptop sitting on the desk.  
  
"Duo!" Heero called. "We're back!"  
  
They heard a door upstairs slam with unnecessary force. The footsteps on the stairs were like thunder. The four pilots exchanged glances before Duo entered the room.  
  
His face was contorted by rage and pain, his eyes were blazing violet fury. They had never seen him so angry.  
  
"You guys have got a hell of a lot of explaining to do," he growled. His fingers clutched the doorjamb so tight they were white. His teeth were clenched tight as if he were trying to keep soemthing from escaping.  
  
"Duo, what's wrong?" Quatre asked.  
  
"What the fuck did you think you were playing at!" Duo cried. There were tears in his eyes. "How long did you think you could go on before I found out!"  
  
It was as if they'd all been flung into a vat of icy water. Dear God…He'd found out.  
  
"Duo – "  
  
"Don't you even think about talking to me, Heero Yuy!" Duo snarled.  
  
"Duo, just calm down, let us explain," Trowa started.  
  
"They fuck I will!" Duo cried again. "What were you trying to do, huh? See how long you could keep fooling me until I found out?"  
  
"Duo, please – " Quatre started.  
  
"Don't call me that!" the boy wailed. The tears fell down his face. "Don't you understand! I'm not Duo Maxwell! I'm a fucked up science experiment! I'm not – " His voice was choked off by sobs. None of them could move. All was falling apart in front of their eyes but they were frozen and so could not jump to catch the pieces.  
  
No, no…the words kept repeating in Heero's head uselessly. He felt them hammering at the inside of his hgead as if he would go mad. This is not fair, this is not fair! He's mine! You can't take him away, not now!  
  
"Please listen to us," Wufei said.  
  
"No!" Duo cried. "I'll never listen to any of you ever again! You used me, you all used me!"  
  
"Duo," Heero started again, coming forward. He couldn't bare this…he simply couldn't bare it.  
  
"Keep away from me," Duo said, backing away. "How could you do that to me, Heero? How could you use me like this…"  
  
"I didn't – "  
  
"But you didn't use me! It's not me! I'm not me!" Duo howled. "All this I've felt, all this I've thought, it's not mine! I'm not me!" He wrapped his arms around himself and turned his back on them. "How could you all do this to me?"  
  
"Duo, I love you!" Heero cried desperatly, not caring who heard. Those three words, they were so hard to utter, they had to be worth something! They had always eased everything in the past, they had to work now.  
  
"Don't you dare say that to me!" Duo cried, swinging around, but his voice was tear-choked. They could all see it was tearing him apart. He knew he loved Heero, but he also knew that it wasn't his own feeling. "Get this into your head, Yuy! Duo's dead, I'm not Duo! I'm dead, he's dead! You're alone! But you used me!"  
  
"No," Heero pleaded. "You don't understand."  
  
"Too right I don't…" Duo calmed for a moment. "I'm leaving. Don't even try coming after me. I'm not coming back."  
  
Duo turned and headed to the door, Heero sprinted after. "Duo, you promised you wouldn't leave me!"  
  
"No, Heero," the boy said, not turning around to face him. "Duo promised he wouldn't leave you. Those were Duo's words, Duo's feelings. They're not mine…nothing is mine…"  
  
And he left. He didn't come back.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
The mood in the safe house was bitter for many days afterward. They waited out the rest of the month and beyond, but Duo didn't return. They didn't really expect him to. They were all very quiet. Their faith in their very selves had all been shaken to the core. They all knew, deep down inside, that it was not their fault. But the guilt and the hurt took a long time to abate.  
  
Heero suffered badly. He had gone through months of turmoil trying to learn not to be affected by his emotions. Duo had turned up and ripped apart all of that. Heero trusted him and let himself be torn, letting his emotions once more be a part of him. But Duo had left him. Now those emotions he had spent years trying to control came on him in a constant rush that he could not understand how to control. Tears, anger, violent outbursts and then more tears. He could not understand why everything always went wrong for him.Slowly, he calmed. His emotions spent, what remained simply froze over. No one cared for him,s o why should he care for anyone else?  
  
This realisation and new attitude of Heero's became unbearable for the others. He accepted no sympathy from anyone. He refused any offers of help, he even abandoned the concepts of politeness and simple consideration for others' feelings. He became downright sadistic. The others gave up trying to comfort him. They had their own wounds to lick.  
  
So weeks melded into months. The peace talks were a success and peace came to the earth sphere. Life slid into a calm and soothing series of repetitions. It seemed rather an anticlimax.  
  
The four pilots stuck together out of habit for a while after, not really feeling that they could belong anywhere anymore. But they soon drifted apart. Trowa and Quatre went together to L3, Wufei went back to his homeland in the orient and Heero…disappeared. He simply left without word to anyone. No one was very surprised and no one wasted concern on him. None of them any longer were on the best of terms with Heero any more. He treated them unfairly and any worry given about his welfare would be wasted.  
  
And so he disappered and no one saw him or even heard from him for months. Quatre and Trowa stayed together, the happiest of them all since they had each other to help them get back to their lives. Wufei kept in touch with them to the extent so that they could always get hold of each other if it were needed.   
  
Hurt faded and grudges eased away slowly. They no longer thought of Heero with bitterness. He was just a young man who had been hurt too many times. They occasionally caught sight of him or got some lead as to where he was and occasionally they met. But they never really talked.  
  
But they all returned to lives of relative normalcy.  
  
The months eased into years… 


	14. Chapter 13

"This is so exciting, isn't it, Noin?" Relena asked as she overlooked the huge hall in her castle that was being decked out in decorations.  
  
"Yes, Miss Relena," Noin replied. "It'll be nice to see everyone again."  
  
"Did the pilots all reply then?" Relena asked.  
  
"Yep," Noin said. "Even Heero again. That's two years in a row he's agreed to come. They'll all be arriving tommorrow."  
  
Relena sighed. "It'll be so nice to be able to see everyone," she said, wondering away from the hall. She brushed a bouquet of roses that was on a table in the hallway. There were flowers all over the castle, beautiful bouquets in stylish vases and tied in bunches and hung on the walls. The whole place smelled beautiful. "The flowers are spectacular this year aren't they, Noin?"  
  
"Yes they are," Noin replied. "The perfect thing to mark an anniversary of the peace treaty being signed."  
  
Relena nodded. "Would you have the gardener put fresh bouquets the boy's bedrooms for when they arrive? I think they'd like that."  
  
"Yes, ma'am," she said. "I'll tell him myself."  
  
Relena nodded. It was going to be a fabulous party. She hadn't seen Heero since the last party the year before. Before that, no one had heard from him in years. She never gave up that maybe she'd awake some semblance of humanity in him. She had to mean something to him after all these years, even if he never talked, never smiled. She could help him. She wanted to help him. She thought she loved him.  
  
"Actually, don't worry, Noin," Relena said. "I'll tell the gardener. I fancy a walk before it gets too dark."  
  
She strolled out into the gardens. The fading sunlight bathed everything in a soft warm glow. She smiled rather foolishly. Even after all these years of rejection she always eagerly anticipated the next attempt to win Heero over.  
  
She was in such a daze she didn't realise that she had entered the garden where the head gardener was working until she almost stepped on him. He was working the rest of the weeds out of a beautiful bed just before the last light of day gave out. It was crowded with glorious roses against a fine, tall brick wall, covered in honeysuckle, slowly easing forward to blue irises and lilies and then smaller flowers like Busy Lizzies and forget-me-nots skirting the front edge, delicate tendrils of colour whispering against the edges of the green lawn. Relena loved these gardens. They were unbelievably beautiful and well kept.  
  
"Ah, hello ma'am," the gardener said, noticing her standing there. He stood, brushing grass off his knees. "I've just about finished up for the night. I'm working on the big rose bed tomorrow."  
  
"Oh, good," Relena nodded her approval. "I want to congratulate you. The flowers for the house are all beautiful."  
  
"Thank you, ma'am," he said, touching his cap.  
  
"Also, if it's not too much trouble Mr…Church is it?"  
  
"Yep," he replied. "You can call me Max, ma'am."  
  
"Very well," she said with a smile. "Mr. Max. I'd like some fresh bouquets put in the four large guest bedrooms tomorrow…no requests for any particular flowers. Just use your initiative."  
  
"Sure," he replied. "Those are the rooms for the Gundam heroes, huh?"  
  
"That's right," Relena nodded. "Well, thanks, Mr. Max. I'll see you – "  
  
"Miss Relena?" he stopped her.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I have something for you…"  
  
Relena followed the young man curiously as he went over to the wheelbarrow. He presented her with the most spectacular display of purple irises Relena had ever seen. "Why, thank you. Why ever are you giving these to me?"  
  
"For misunderstanding you, ma'am," he replied cheerfully. His cap always shadowed his face, but Relena could see him smiling. He turned away and wheeled off his wheelbarrow, whistling to himself, cropped hair swaying against the back of his neck.   
  
Relena looked after him, slightly confused. She shrugged and carried her wonderful present back to the house.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Heero pulled up outside Relena's castle. He left the car to the valet and walked up the steps. Relena was there to greet him, along with Trowa, Quatre and Wufei who had already arrived.  
  
Everyone was happy to see him and talked excitedly about news and about the party. Old pain had died hard, leaving him sour and bitter, but around these guys, at least now, he did make some effort to be amiable. He tried his best to be polite. However, he'd been out of the habit too long so he mostly just stayed quiet in case he offended anyone. It wasn't often he thought of other people's feelings, but he made an exception for his former comrades. Except for Relena, but she never got offended, even when he threatened her life.  
  
The day wore on into night and they were shown to their rooms to rest after their journeys. The party started the following evening so they had the whole following day to relax and enjoy themselves. Heero thought he'd just stroll around the grounds and find somewhere quiet to sit the day out.  
  
He walked into his impressive room with barely and appreciative glance. He walked to the window to look at the view. It was beautiful, but he was blind to it. He knew somewhere deep inside him there was once a place that loved beauty, but he was empty inside now. He just stared at the glorious castle grounds with disinterest.  
  
He noticed a familiar scent in the air in his room. He turned around and saw a pristine bouquet of white lilies on the table by his bed.  
  
He walked over to them and gently brushed the petals with his fingertips. So soft…He had always loved white lilies. No matter how sour, morose or empty he was feeling, he always acknowledged the pleasure brought to him with the scents, sights and textures of the lovely plant. Very few people knew that. It was about the only thing he did love any more.   
  
He sighed and collapsed on the bed where he fell into a black and dreamless slumber.  
  
TBC…So close? Hee hee. Glad u lot have stuck with me this far ^_~! 


	15. Chapter 14 FINALE

"Good morning all," Relena greeted them brightly as they all turned up for breakfast next morning. It was funny, even after all these years the boys still instinctively timed getting up in the morning to coincide with everyone else, so they all entered the dining room within seconds of each other. "I trust you liked your rooms," Relena carried on.  
  
"Yes, it was lovely, thank you Miss Relena," Quatre said.  
  
"Yes," Heero said softly as he sat down. "Thank you for the flowers."  
  
All started at him for a moment. Heero looked almost content.   
  
"Your welcome Heero!" Relena was positively beaming. "I asked the gardener to put flowers in all your rooms personally."  
  
"How did you know about the lilies?" Heero asked in his still stony voice as he started in on his breakfast.  
  
"I didn't," Relena said off-handedly as she requested some more orange juice from a servant. "I told the gardener to choose."  
  
Heero paused. White lilies…just a coincidence?  
  
Breakfast finished up and more guests started to arrive for the party that evening. Much to Relena's consternation (and Heero's relief) she had to go off to greet the arriving guests so they didn't see much of her for the rest of the morning.  
  
That evening, Heero stood with a glass of champagne in his best suit and stared around the hall dully. He never enjoyed this sort of thing. Sure, he knew a lot of the people in there, but he never enjoyed talking. Wufei was off somewhere, drunkenly flirting far beyond what was normally characteristic of him and Trowa and Quatre were dancing slowly together on the dance floor. Even the jealousy Heero felt when he watched them was half-hearted. He just didn't have the heart to do anything any more.  
  
"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeero!" Relena's voice called.  
  
One thought entered Heero's mind: run. He downed the rest of his champagne and stumbled out some large, open French windows into the waning sunlight. The noise and heat of the party disappeared behind him in a gaudy mist of show and pomp. He escaped out into the cool air of the evening and felt as though he had got out of the inferno and into a world of snow and ice. It did not burn him, but chilled him slowly.  
  
He ignored it and strolled out further into the gardens. Green bushes surrounded him and seemed to embrace him. As he ventured further the beauty unfurled around him. In the waning sunlight, the flowers were closing for the night, but all the arrangements and symmetry and the sheer mass of colour that screamed in the silence delved deep inside him to a place that had been shut up for years. It just reminded him of a distant feeling…a dream of a dream.  
  
He stopped in a small garden, tall bushes curving around a stone fountain that gently sprayed forth its crystalline liquid silver with a soothing sound of trickling water. There were no bushes at the west end of the garden, leaving it open to the sunset. Heero sat on the edge of the fountain and watched the sun slowly sink away from him.  
  
As he sat there, surrounded by the beauty that was slowly closing away for the dark night, the sun rolling away from him, taking with it warmth and light, he started to look in on himself in a way he had not done in so long. He did not understand why the sunset effected him so much, he just knew it did.  
  
Just as the sun was almost completely gone, a gardener, pushing wearily at a wheelbarrow, came into sight. The stranger, not noticing Heero, stood for a moment, silhouetted against the setting sun and watched the day retreating in silence. He turned around and moved his barrow up to a bed close to Heero and unloaded two potted geraniums onto the grass by the bed. With professional keenness, he knelt and started digging in the clean soil to make space for them. However, his gaze kept flicking back to the sunset.  
  
Heero shifted. The gardener realised he was not alone. He startled. "Dear God!" he exclaimed, spinning around on his knees and falling into a clumsy sitting position.. He took a few deep breaths before calming down. "Sorry, pal," he said. "Didn't see you there." He stood up and dusted his hands off. His face, what Heero could see of it, was pleasant, but there was something missing from the way he smiled. His sleeves were rolled up away from his grubby hands to reveal slim arms. Heero watched him lazily. His movements were so easy and free. Heero felt something stir…  
  
"You here for the party, huh?" he asked in a friendly manner.  
  
Heero did not reply.  
  
Something caught the gardener's eye over Heero's shoulder.  
  
"Well," the gardener said as he hoisted his barrow. "Here comes the boss. G'nite, sir." The man touched his peaked cap and wheeled his barrow away.  
  
'The boss' (namely, Relena) sat down next to Heero on the fountain edge. "Hee-chan," she admonished. "What are you doing out here all by yourself?"  
  
"Just thinking," Heero replied bluntly, still watching the gardener until he rounded a corner and disappeared. "Who was that?"  
  
Relena looked at the place where the gardener had disappeared. "That's my head gardener," she turned back to Heero. "Heero," she said softly. "Why are you so quiet? Why won't you tell me what you're feeling? I could help you – "  
  
"Is he good?"  
  
"Nani?"  
  
"Is he good…at gardening?"  
  
"He's good," Relena replied, surprised and agitated about the change in subject. "The gardens  
  
have never been so spectacular," she admitted grudgingly.  
  
Heero nodded. He made no response to any of Relena's previous queries. He just sat and ignored her. Relena was not perturbed, but decided the silence was kind of romantic so she let it hang for a while.  
  
To her surprise, it was Heero that broke the silence. "Relena, could I ask you a favour?"  
  
Relena followed Heero's gaze. It was still watching to the spot where her gardener had disappeared. As she looked at the way he was gazing, it made her realise suddenly that she would never win him over now. Something twisted in her. She understood something that was beyond understanding, beyond life, beyond death, beyond love. "Yes, Heero," she said with the most sincerity she had ever felt. "Whatever you wish."  
  
Heero did not look at her. "I would love some more white lilies."  
  
Relena nodded. She knew that Heero would never be hers. Somehow, she knew now. Heero had never been hers but…if she could not make him happy herself, she would help him be happy with someone else. She kissed him once on the cheek and raised from the bench to leave. "Anything you wish, my love," she whispered before leaving him to watch the sunset alone.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
It was the next day. Heero turned around as he heard the door opening. In walked the young gardener with an arm full of pristine white lilies, as delicate as glass, as fine as crystal. He looked up and saw Heero standing by the window.  
  
"Beg your pardon," he said. "I thought you'd be out. Boss says you want some more lilies."  
  
"That is correct," said Heero, something indefinable in his voice and gaze.  
  
"They're good this year," the gardener said as he laid the flowers upon the bedside table along with the others.  
  
"Better," Heero said. He walked closer to the young man.  
  
The gardener's face momentarily flattened at Heero's word. He backed off slightly as Heero approached. A grin once more plastered itself back over his face. "Well, if that's all you're wanting, sir, I'll just be toddling along – "  
  
"No," said Heero. He grabbed the gardener's hand as he turned to leave. "I want to speak to you." His hand felt soft, like lily petals.  
  
"I'm sorry sir," the young man said in a soft, doubtful voice. He did not meet Heero's eyes. "I have work to do."  
  
"Duo…" Heero said. "Don't push me away, please. Please don't run away again."  
  
"I'm sorry, sir," the young man said, turning away and half-heartedly trying to pull his wrist out of Heero's grip. "I'm not Duo. My name's Church, Max Church. You must have mistaken me for someone else."  
  
"You are him," Heero said. For the first time in years, his brain was working properly. The pain was still burning as bright as it had been, but Heero had learned to control it. He never thought this moment would come. But it had and it seemed like he'd been preparing for it. He knew his feelings now and he knew exactly what to say. The boy wasn't property for him to keep. If he wanted to go then Heero would let him. But Heero knew, somehow, that the boy didn't want to go.   
  
"Heero, please," the boy did not try to pull away. "You've hurt me enough already."  
  
"You don't understand, Duo," Heero said. He turned the boy around to face him. He was still as beautiful as he remembered, but his eyes were downcast and the light that once sparkled there was gone. "I never wanted to hurt you, neither you or the part of you that died. Why can't you understand that you are the same person?"  
  
"Because we're not, Heero," Duo shook his head. "I'm not even a person. I was never born, I didn't grow up…everything I thought was mine is stolen."  
  
"No," Heero insisted. He lifted up a hand and took the boy's cap off. Cropped, silky hair fell to his neck and framed his face, curving around it delicately as two hands embrace a shell. It was as if Duo had tried to cut away everything he thought belonged to someone else. "Not stolen, not copied. Duo, all those things that you felt go up to make who you are. That makes them yours and no one else's. You are still an individual…you are still exactly the same person as you remember."  
  
His eyes raised to meet Heero's, amethyst pools misted with tears. "I've moved on now Heero," he said. "I've forgotten everything that never belonged to me. I'm Max Church now, I work for Miss Relena. I've never met you before and it's been nice talking with you, but I'd like to go now." He turned away again and pulled at his trapped wrist.  
  
"Duo," Heero deliberately did not call him 'Max'. "Listen to me. Whether you want to believe it or not, you know that what I've said is true. It's just your morals that are getting in the way. You know I'm right, don't you? You know you're Duo! You know that's why I love you!"  
  
The boy paused. "Please don't say that Heero," he said. "If you say it then I'm going to fall again and run to you even though I know it's wrong."  
  
"Duo, don't you see!" Heero cried. He felt tears in his own eyes now. "It's not wrong! You are who you are, Duo! You died, but you were brought back! You're not a copy. You are exactly the same person, you have the same memories, the same characteristics, the same reactions to everything!" Heero sighed and pulled the boy close to him. He came, but didn't turn to face the Japanese boy. Heero wrapped his arms around him and buried his face in his hair and just held him there. He couldn't believe it. He knew he was right. All the self-torture and self-doubt he had gone through vanished and he knew that something couldn't be this perfect and wrong. He knew Duo felt it too, but was too reluctant to accept it.  
  
"Not a day has gone by when I haven't stopped loving you, Heero," he whispered. "But all the time I was terrified that the love I felt was something that wasn't mine."  
  
"It is yours, Duo," Heero whispered. "I'm yours…forever."  
  
Duo turned in Heero's arms to look at him. A rage of emotions battled in his eyes. "It's a sin that this should feel so strongly right. Your not mine Heero…you belong to Duo…"  
  
"That's right," Heero said. "I belong to him, heart body and soul. I belong to you." Heero leant forward and brushed his lips tenderly against the other boy's. Tentatively, still giving him time to leave if he really wanted to. He didn't pull away. Heero felt his fire reaching out to try and coax Duo forward, back into the warmth, back where he knew he belonged.   
  
Heero's kiss grew bolder and he pulled Duo close to him, wrapping his arms around his waist.   
  
"Heero…" Duo murmured in between kisses. And he fell. He fell because he was supposed to fall. He wrapped his arms around Heero's neck and kissed him deeply, savoring the tastes and feelings he had missed. He missed them like he missed his hair because they had been a part of him. He understood. He loved Heero more than passion could allow. He knew that feeling that strong could not be fake, he knew it could not be created in a laboratory.  
  
"You cut your hair," said Heero as he kissed Duo's jaw.  
  
"I thought it was wrong to keep it," Duo said. "Though it felt right."  
  
"If it felt right, it was right, Duo," Heero insisted, running his fingers through the short locks.  
  
"I've missed it," Duo replied, kissing Heero below his ear.  
  
"It's yours, Duo," Heero said. "Along with everything else. Grow it back."  
  
Duo smiled against Heero's neck. "Ok," he said. "I want it back…it is mine."  
  
It gave Heero hope to hear him say those words with such certainty. "Thank you for the lilies."  
  
"Duo knew you liked them," he said reluctantly. Then, more bravely, "No, I knew you like them. I knew."  
  
"Say it, Duo," Heero said as he nuzzled his neck.  
  
"I'm Duo," he murmured.  
  
"Stronger…"   
  
"I'm Duo Maxwell," Duo said, realisation and sincerity crashing into him like sweet sea breakers at the ocean's edge. He laughed joyously. "I'm Duo Maxwell and I love Heero Yuy."  
  
Heero smiled the first genuine smile he had smiled ever. He stroked Duo's hair, still silky though a lot was missing. He drank in the face that he realised he could not live without. He was only half a person without it. And it was now smiling, though happy tears danced in the violet eyes.   
  
"You were always there to take away my doubts," Duo whispered, reaching far back, to memories that he now accepted as his own.   
  
"And I'll be with you to take away any more," Heero replied. "I'm yours, Duo Maxwell. Forever."  
  
  
  
Fin  
  
Author's note: I just want to say a huge thank you to every single one of you who reviewed this story. I really enjoyed writing it and it makes me extremely happy to know that so many of you were kind enough to take the time to tell me what you thought of it. Thank you for all your support,.Jex xxxx 


	16. Chapter 14 FINALE with added note

"Good morning all," Relena greeted them brightly as they all turned up for breakfast next morning. It was funny, even after all these years the boys still instinctively timed getting up in the morning to coincide with everyone else, so they all entered the dining room within seconds of each other. "I trust you liked your rooms," Relena carried on.  
  
"Yes, it was lovely, thank you Miss Relena," Quatre said.  
  
"Yes," Heero said softly as he sat down. "Thank you for the flowers."  
  
All started at him for a moment. Heero looked almost content.   
  
"Your welcome Heero!" Relena was positively beaming. "I asked the gardener to put flowers in all your rooms personally."  
  
"How did you know about the lilies?" Heero asked in his still stony voice as he started in on his breakfast.  
  
"I didn't," Relena said off-handedly as she requested some more orange juice from a servant. "I told the gardener to choose."  
  
Heero paused. White lilies…just a coincidence?  
  
Breakfast finished up and more guests started to arrive for the party that evening. Much to Relena's consternation (and Heero's relief) she had to go off to greet the arriving guests so they didn't see much of her for the rest of the morning.  
  
That evening, Heero stood with a glass of champagne in his best suit and stared around the hall dully. He never enjoyed this sort of thing. Sure, he knew a lot of the people in there, but he never enjoyed talking. Wufei was off somewhere, drunkenly flirting far beyond what was normally characteristic of him and Trowa and Quatre were dancing slowly together on the dance floor. Even the jealousy Heero felt when he watched them was half-hearted. He just didn't have the heart to do anything any more.  
  
"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeero!" Relena's voice called.  
  
One thought entered Heero's mind: run. He downed the rest of his champagne and stumbled out some large, open French windows into the waning sunlight. The noise and heat of the party disappeared behind him in a gaudy mist of show and pomp. He escaped out into the cool air of the evening and felt as though he had got out of the inferno and into a world of snow and ice. It did not burn him, but chilled him slowly.  
  
He ignored it and strolled out further into the gardens. Green bushes surrounded him and seemed to embrace him. As he ventured further the beauty unfurled around him. In the waning sunlight, the flowers were closing for the night, but all the arrangements and symmetry and the sheer mass of colour that screamed in the silence delved deep inside him to a place that had been shut up for years. It just reminded him of a distant feeling…a dream of a dream.  
  
He stopped in a small garden, tall bushes curving around a stone fountain that gently sprayed forth its crystalline liquid silver with a soothing sound of trickling water. There were no bushes at the west end of the garden, leaving it open to the sunset. Heero sat on the edge of the fountain and watched the sun slowly sink away from him.  
  
As he sat there, surrounded by the beauty that was slowly closing away for the dark night, the sun rolling away from him, taking with it warmth and light, he started to look in on himself in a way he had not done in so long. He did not understand why the sunset effected him so much, he just knew it did.  
  
Just as the sun was almost completely gone, a gardener, pushing wearily at a wheelbarrow, came into sight. The stranger, not noticing Heero, stood for a moment, silhouetted against the setting sun and watched the day retreating in silence. He turned around and moved his barrow up to a bed close to Heero and unloaded two potted geraniums onto the grass by the bed. With professional keenness, he knelt and started digging in the clean soil to make space for them. However, his gaze kept flicking back to the sunset.  
  
Heero shifted. The gardener realised he was not alone. He startled. "Dear God!" he exclaimed, spinning around on his knees and falling into a clumsy sitting position.. He took a few deep breaths before calming down. "Sorry, pal," he said. "Didn't see you there." He stood up and dusted his hands off. His face, what Heero could see of it, was pleasant, but there was something missing from the way he smiled. His sleeves were rolled up away from his grubby hands to reveal slim arms. Heero watched him lazily. His movements were so easy and free. Heero felt something stir…  
  
"You here for the party, huh?" he asked in a friendly manner.  
  
Heero did not reply.  
  
Something caught the gardener's eye over Heero's shoulder.  
  
"Well," the gardener said as he hoisted his barrow. "Here comes the boss. G'nite, sir." The man touched his peaked cap and wheeled his barrow away.  
  
'The boss' (namely, Relena) sat down next to Heero on the fountain edge. "Hee-chan," she admonished. "What are you doing out here all by yourself?"  
  
"Just thinking," Heero replied bluntly, still watching the gardener until he rounded a corner and disappeared. "Who was that?"  
  
Relena looked at the place where the gardener had disappeared. "That's my head gardener," she turned back to Heero. "Heero," she said softly. "Why are you so quiet? Why won't you tell me what you're feeling? I could help you – "  
  
"Is he good?"  
  
"Nani?"  
  
"Is he good…at gardening?"  
  
"He's good," Relena replied, surprised and agitated about the change in subject. "The gardens  
  
have never been so spectacular," she admitted grudgingly.  
  
Heero nodded. He made no response to any of Relena's previous queries. He just sat and ignored her. Relena was not perturbed, but decided the silence was kind of romantic so she let it hang for a while.  
  
To her surprise, it was Heero that broke the silence. "Relena, could I ask you a favour?"  
  
Relena followed Heero's gaze. It was still watching to the spot where her gardener had disappeared. As she looked at the way he was gazing, it made her realise suddenly that she would never win him over now. Something twisted in her. She understood something that was beyond understanding, beyond life, beyond death, beyond love. "Yes, Heero," she said with the most sincerity she had ever felt. "Whatever you wish."  
  
Heero did not look at her. "I would love some more white lilies."  
  
Relena nodded. She knew that Heero would never be hers. Somehow, she knew now. Heero had never been hers but…if she could not make him happy herself, she would help him be happy with someone else. She kissed him once on the cheek and raised from the bench to leave. "Anything you wish, my love," she whispered before leaving him to watch the sunset alone.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
It was the next day. Heero turned around as he heard the door opening. In walked the young gardener with an arm full of pristine white lilies, as delicate as glass, as fine as crystal. He looked up and saw Heero standing by the window.  
  
"Beg your pardon," he said. "I thought you'd be out. Boss says you want some more lilies."  
  
"That is correct," said Heero, something indefinable in his voice and gaze.  
  
"They're good this year," the gardener said as he laid the flowers upon the bedside table along with the others.  
  
"Better," Heero said. He walked closer to the young man.  
  
The gardener's face momentarily flattened at Heero's word. He backed off slightly as Heero approached. A grin once more plastered itself back over his face. "Well, if that's all you're wanting, sir, I'll just be toddling along – "  
  
"No," said Heero. He grabbed the gardener's hand as he turned to leave. "I want to speak to you." His hand felt soft, like lily petals.  
  
"I'm sorry sir," the young man said in a soft, doubtful voice. He did not meet Heero's eyes. "I have work to do."  
  
"Duo…" Heero said. "Don't push me away, please. Please don't run away again."  
  
"I'm sorry, sir," the young man said, turning away and half-heartedly trying to pull his wrist out of Heero's grip. "I'm not Duo. My name's Church, Max Church. You must have mistaken me for someone else."  
  
"You are him," Heero said. For the first time in years, his brain was working properly. The pain was still burning as bright as it had been, but Heero had learned to control it. He never thought this moment would come. But it had and it seemed like he'd been preparing for it. He knew his feelings now and he knew exactly what to say. The boy wasn't property for him to keep. If he wanted to go then Heero would let him. But Heero knew, somehow, that the boy didn't want to go.   
  
"Heero, please," the boy did not try to pull away. "You've hurt me enough already."  
  
"You don't understand, Duo," Heero said. He turned the boy around to face him. He was still as beautiful as he remembered, but his eyes were downcast and the light that once sparkled there was gone. "I never wanted to hurt you, neither you or the part of you that died. Why can't you understand that you are the same person?"  
  
"Because we're not, Heero," Duo shook his head. "I'm not even a person. I was never born, I didn't grow up…everything I thought was mine is stolen."  
  
"No," Heero insisted. He lifted up a hand and took the boy's cap off. Cropped, silky hair fell to his neck and framed his face, curving around it delicately as two hands embrace a shell. It was as if Duo had tried to cut away everything he thought belonged to someone else. "Not stolen, not copied. Duo, all those things that you felt go up to make who you are. That makes them yours and no one else's. You are still an individual…you are still exactly the same person as you remember."  
  
His eyes raised to meet Heero's, amethyst pools misted with tears. "I've moved on now Heero," he said. "I've forgotten everything that never belonged to me. I'm Max Church now, I work for Miss Relena. I've never met you before and it's been nice talking with you, but I'd like to go now." He turned away again and pulled at his trapped wrist.  
  
"Duo," Heero deliberately did not call him 'Max'. "Listen to me. Whether you want to believe it or not, you know that what I've said is true. It's just your morals that are getting in the way. You know I'm right, don't you? You know you're Duo! You know that's why I love you!"  
  
The boy paused. "Please don't say that Heero," he said. "If you say it then I'm going to fall again and run to you even though I know it's wrong."  
  
"Duo, don't you see!" Heero cried. He felt tears in his own eyes now. "It's not wrong! You are who you are, Duo! You died, but you were brought back! You're not a copy. You are exactly the same person, you have the same memories, the same characteristics, the same reactions to everything!" Heero sighed and pulled the boy close to him. He came, but didn't turn to face the Japanese boy. Heero wrapped his arms around him and buried his face in his hair and just held him there. He couldn't believe it. He knew he was right. All the self-torture and self-doubt he had gone through vanished and he knew that something couldn't be this perfect and wrong. He knew Duo felt it too, but was too reluctant to accept it.  
  
"Not a day has gone by when I haven't stopped loving you, Heero," he whispered. "But all the time I was terrified that the love I felt was something that wasn't mine."  
  
"It is yours, Duo," Heero whispered. "I'm yours…forever."  
  
Duo turned in Heero's arms to look at him. A rage of emotions battled in his eyes. "It's a sin that this should feel so strongly right. Your not mine Heero…you belong to Duo…"  
  
"That's right," Heero said. "I belong to him, heart body and soul. I belong to you." Heero leant forward and brushed his lips tenderly against the other boy's. Tentatively, still giving him time to leave if he really wanted to. He didn't pull away. Heero felt his fire reaching out to try and coax Duo forward, back into the warmth, back where he knew he belonged.   
  
Heero's kiss grew bolder and he pulled Duo close to him, wrapping his arms around his waist.   
  
"Heero…" Duo murmured in between kisses. And he fell. He fell because he was supposed to fall. He wrapped his arms around Heero's neck and kissed him deeply, savoring the tastes and feelings he had missed. He missed them like he missed his hair because they had been a part of him. He understood. He loved Heero more than passion could allow. He knew that feeling that strong could not be fake, he knew it could not be created in a laboratory.  
  
"You cut your hair," said Heero as he kissed Duo's jaw.  
  
"I thought it was wrong to keep it," Duo said. "Though it felt right."  
  
"If it felt right, it was right, Duo," Heero insisted, running his fingers through the short locks.  
  
"I've missed it," Duo replied, kissing Heero below his ear.  
  
"It's yours, Duo," Heero said. "Along with everything else. Grow it back."  
  
Duo smiled against Heero's neck. "Ok," he said. "I want it back…it is mine."  
  
It gave Heero hope to hear him say those words with such certainty. "Thank you for the lilies."  
  
"Duo knew you liked them," he said reluctantly. Then, more bravely, "No, I knew you like them. I knew."  
  
"Say it, Duo," Heero said as he nuzzled his neck.  
  
"I'm Duo," he murmured.  
  
"Stronger…"   
  
"I'm Duo Maxwell," Duo said, realisation and sincerity crashing into him like sweet sea breakers at the ocean's edge. He laughed joyously. "I'm Duo Maxwell and I love Heero Yuy."  
  
Heero smiled the first genuine smile he had smiled ever. He stroked Duo's hair, still silky though a lot was missing. He drank in the face that he realised he could not live without. He was only half a person without it. And it was now smiling, though happy tears danced in the violet eyes.   
  
"You were always there to take away my doubts," Duo whispered, reaching far back, to memories that he now accepted as his own.   
  
"And I'll be with you to take away any more," Heero replied. "I'm yours, Duo Maxwell. Forever."  
  
  
  
Fin  
  
Author's note: I just want to say a huge thank you to every single one of you who reviewed this story. I really enjoyed writing it and it makes me extremely happy to know that so many of you were kind enough to take the time to tell me what you thought of it. Thank you for all your support,.Jex xxxx 


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